


Constellations

by imperfectkreis



Series: A Handbook of Images [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Fingering, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Married Couple, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:56:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3516104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Proper, long from sequel to Both Matter: Cullen and Sabina Trevelyan have to do a bunch of stuff they don't want to because Thedas is still a hot mess. They actually like each other now, for the most part. Actually, they're stupid about each other and stupid in general. It's a little bit 'babies ever after' but with the realization that they still have to do their damn jobs.</p><p>Now with art from the lovely DrennTrev! (chapter 8)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Problem with Thinking You're in the Clear is That Sharp Sense Everything Isn't Okay

Sleep is peaceful, welcome with the tinge of addiction. It’s Cullen’s waking hours that haunt him. His attempts to break the leash of lyrium a failure. What he believed to be perseverance, a wash in the wind at the first sign of adversity. It is not a decision he could possibly regret, drinking from the blue flask while Coryphaeus loomed over them, an imminent threat. The need he felt to protect the mages and Sabina to the very best of his ability was intense. To fill the Cassandra shaped void. They were, after all, victorious. 

He still feels the ache in his lungs when he draws breath too rashly, pushes himself too far, but it is a small price to pay. The cost of his addiction is the only one that troubles him.

He takes it in two doses, morning and evening, by the needle he has always preferred. Pricking himself sharply reminds him he is alive. Reminds him as well that he performs this task as a sacrifice, not an amusement. 

Tying off his arm, he raises the vein, inserts the needle, and lets go. He feels warm, comforted, as if he is more than the man he knows himself to be. The seduction of this drug that sustains so many endeavors. Thedas runs on this addiction, whether they admit to it or not.

The evening dose stops the tremors, the screaming in his sleep that threatens to tear apart his organs once again. Neria. The morning dose keeps him from going mad, itching at his skin, turning on his colleagues. Red welts along his arm remind him in the moments in between. Even covered by his sleeve, he remembers. Sabina appraises his marks nightly. Kisses along the tracks. She blames herself; she handed him the flask. But the both knew the sacrifices they were making.

Anders says that he only needs a few more weeks. If he then wants to subject himself to a series of nightmares, cold sweats, mood swings, mysterious pains, and hallucinations, that is his own choice. He may go through withdrawal again once the rest of him has healed. But he will not undo the work that Anders has done, out of the ‘kindness’ of his heart, to put Cullen back together like the ragdoll he is.

The days cannot pass quickly enough. He wants to be free. He does not want to fail again, enter a cycle of off and on the wagon of sobriety. Many would think that the most important events in his life have already passed and he is not yet thirty-three. Close, though. The massacre at Kinloch, a Qunari uprising, the Kirkwall Rebellions, serving the Inquisition at the defeat of Coryphaeus. These are all quite significant feats. And at each he found himself to be lacking, though Sabina insists that the last misstep would have happened to any defender in his position. When a dragon decides it’s going to step on you, there’s no stopping it, really. 

But now he does not wish to fail himself or Sabina. He wants to be happy and for her happiness to be guaranteed as well. Such a simple thing. There is still work for the Inquisition to field. A continent in the midst of rebuilding, looking to them for help. To Sabina for favor. Rifts still scatter the landscape and hapless, terrified demons fall through the gaps. She is the only one able to close them. 

Perhaps his wants are selfish. 

Without selfishness there will never be time. He was meant to serve the Order first, subsequently the Inquisition. Now he wishes to serve her. Though none of these possibilities for him to do good seem particularly in reach when he cannot even breathe without discomfort. 

Sabina breezes into his office, soft linen skirts trailing behind her. With the coming of spring she rarely wears trousers at Skyhold, though on her feet she still favors her tall, flat-heeled riding boots. The soft creams, pinks, and yellows she wears seem particularly bright as her skin deepens with the sun. Today is lilac. She appears so relaxed now with the threat of Coryphaeus dealt with, though on occasion she still winds so tight he’s afraid she might burst. 

Without asking she seats herself at the edge of his desk, propping her feet up on the armrest of his chair. If he leans just so he can see up her skirts, silken thighs and all. Sends a shiver down his spine even now, sneaking looks at things he can otherwise touch, devour. Maker, the way she teases him.

“Have you made a decision?” She refers to who will take his place in the field during his recovery. While he can still make staffing and tactical decisions, he is in no state to lead. May not be for months yet. And while there is no war on the horizon, Maker preserve, they cannot simply hope for continued peace. Someone must be appointed. 

“No, Cassandra’s election makes the choice rather more difficult than it otherwise would have been.” The logical choice would be the Seeker, but the crows announcing the Election’s decision have already arrived. In a matter of weeks the Mothers will be here as well to cart off their new Divine.

She waves him off with a delicate, manicured hand. “You knew full well that was going to happen. Wishful thinking on both our parts that she could have filled the position. What other options do you have?”

Sighing, he flips through a number of reports. “We lost two viable candidates in the Arbor Wilds. They were not replaced either. I’ve tagged one of their positions for Scout Harding.”

“Why not her?”

“Hmm?” He looks up for the reports. “For command, you mean?” Considering it, he cannot think of a reason why she would be unsuitable. She has already proven her skill at correlating information, sorting through multiple possibilities and presenting viable scenarios. Really, the one problem that she is an archer and thus not used to working from the front lines. 

“She’s certainly better organized, smarter than your average soldier. But maybe I just have a skewed perspective because I see more of her.” 

Cullen does not miss the way her knees come apart revealing the apex of her thighs. She is tempting him.

“Yes, she is worth considering. I’ll inform you of my decision this afternoon,” setting aside the documents, he closes conversation. 

He wants to run his hands inside her skirts, feel the fabric against his skin. Her flesh too. But she jumps up just as he reaches to touch her. With a smile, she ducks out of his office, saying she has appointments with donors to keep. 

\--

Harding holds perfectly still, hands behind her back, as Cullen explains his concerns, perhaps in more detail than absolutely necessary. That his injuries makes fieldwork somewhat of a risk at the current juncture. That he cannot in good conscience lead when he may be incapacitated more easily, when he cannot fight as diligently as his women and men. That while he still believes himself suited to strategy, on the ground tactical decisions may not be well informed if he cannot stand at the front lines to receive up to the minute reports.

Quipping back she asks, “What do you need from me?” That statement convinces him that Sabina is right. Harding wants the Inquisition to succeed, at all levels. She understands how to fit into the function of something much larger than herself and make it work better than it would without her. 

“Yes, well,” he begins, “consider this your promotion to Captain, Harding. Until further notice, you will be assuming my field duties.”

Her mouth only holds open a moment before snapping closed with a sharp, “Yes, Commander.”

\--

Sabina is indeed tied up with donor meetings all afternoon. He catches a glimpse of her ascending the stairs to the library, two Orlesians with undoubtedly deep pockets in tow. Their ostentatious manner of dress attests to that. They hang on her every word. He watches them carefully to make sure their eyes stay fixed only in the appropriate places as she walks ahead of them.

In the Undercroft Daylen works as he has for months. Combining reagents and minerals and plant matter into before unheard of combinations. One of them, he is convinced, will cure the Calling. Purge the taint from his blood. Cullen remains optimistic, if only because Daylen himself never fades. Deteriorates as he draws closer to death, his frame thinning and eyes dulling, but his optimism does not waver. 

The mage smiles and welcomes him, says there are books for him to read if he wishes. His hands are coated in green gunk.

Taking a seat at the desk, Cullen reads so he does not disturb Daylen in his work. Also, reading prevents him from antagonizing Anders who paces around the room like a caged animal. In many ways he is. The Inquisition, or rather, Sabina, does not know what to do with him. His presence has been both a curse and a blessing. They want to keep him close, but to do so means keeping him a prisoner. Criminal and savior locked into one.

He also suspects Anders does not run because of the Anchor on Sabina's hand.

Daylen surprises him by pulling up a chair opposite at the desk. His hands now clean, if permanently stained a rainbow of colors, he leans forward to catch Cullen’s attention.

“There’s a matter I wish to discuss,” the serious tone gives Cullen pause.

“Yes?”

“I know Inquisitor Trevelyan has been working with Bethany, trying to better control her new magic abilities.”

Cullen nods, unsure if a reprimand or commendation is coming next. Daylen believes his own magic a gift from the Maker. And despite the mage rebellion, he has never been particularly critical of Circle practises. At least not to Cullen’s face. He may very well think it dangerous for Sabina to be experimenting with her abilities. 

“Have you used yours at all?” His blue eyes are kind, if surrounded by dark purple circles that never seem to diminish. Makes the pallor of his skin more apparent. Sleep comes to him only rarely. Even that is with the help of lyrium doses large enough to incapacitate a man twice Daylen’s slender size. 

Had he told Daylen that he cast at the battle with Coryphaeus? He told Sabina, but she is not one to share their private matters. He must have. Everything has been such a jumble since then.

“No, not since that first time. I have no real desire to.”

From across the room Anders interjects. “You owe me ten silver, Daylen.”

The Hero grumbles under his breath. “So it’s true, you did cast.”

Now Cullen is suspicious. “Who told you?”

“No one. Anders suspected as much when he examined you. Something changed. I can’t make sense of it. I’ll need new samples from you. Can’t understand if it’s related to the taint or not. But you do not have the taint. I've checked half a dozen times for it. Every time I think I’ve made progress another variable shifts. But this was after you drank lyrium, yes?”

“Yes,” he admits. Anders is his healer, for what it’s worth, so his continued dependency is not secret from either of them. “I needed access to my Templar abilities to aid the Inquisitor.” 

Anders snickers.

“Do you have a problem?” Cullen snaps.

“I just think it’s funny you refer to your wife as ‘the Inquisitor.’” 

There are a number of sharp comebacks he could level. But on the subject of Anders and wives he stays silent. Petty fights with the still-grieving are not worth having. Anders' temper on the matter of Hawke is notoriously short.

Swiftly and with great tact, Daylen redirects the conversation. “Explain to me what happened, as you remember it.”

Cullen presses his hand to his forehead. While he cannot remember everything, he remembers the event quite clearly. “I had been using Cleanse. Coryphaeus was up ahead of us. I aimed it towards him so that the others might have more success with their attacks. I pulled for Cleanse but instead flames came from my hand.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t ask for it, or think of it, or anything really. It just came. It didn't hit Coryphaeus. It was barely anything. A devotion candle burns brighter.”

Daylen nods, clearly thinking Cullen’s story over. “Inquisitor Trevelyan said she did it on purpose. Well, as much as a thirty-two year old non-mage can cast on purpose. But she said that she had always dreamed she was a mage. Even before her sister was born. She said she knew what to do with her hands. It was as if her mind caught up with what she already knew with her body. Tell me, Cullen, do you ever have dreams of being a mage?”

This session sounds too close to some sort of therapy for Cullen’s comfort. He shifts in his chair. It is one thing to discuss such matters with Sabina, alone, in bed, or simply being with one another. Quite different to explain himself to another. Even though he feels he and Daylen are somewhat close now. 

His dreams, nightmares, are a rather private matter. “Not that I can recall,” he bristles.

“And what of your family, anyone a mage?” That question sits easier with him.

“No, not one.”

Daylen scratches the side of his head with his pen, smearing ink at his temple. “I have to figure this out.” Wandering away from the desk, he does not acknowledge Cullen any further. 

Fair enough. He goes back to reading, listens to Daylen speak to himself and the padding of Anders’ boots against the stone floor.


	2. Everything is Sort of Stop and Go Rather than Full Steam Ahead

His hand is warm against hers as she leads him up the stairs to the barn loft, fingers laced together. To see Cullen smile seems wonderous. Perhaps because now she allows herself to smile as well. The mirroring of gestures intensifies their emotion. Sometimes she must tell herself, even now, to not be afraid. He has already come as close to death, and she as close to madness, as possible. And yet they are here, stowing away like naughty teenagers trying to catch twenty minutes together before their parents find out. Only that analogy is all wrong. They are the cautious ones, responsible, trying to find moments of uninterrupted joy.

Sabina pushes Cullen backwards until he falls against the hay mattress. He's not as fragile as he was a few weeks ago, but they must still be somewhat cautious. Inside his chest, pieces of him are still recovering.

Part of the barn roof is still yet to be mended. It's so far down on the list of priorities the damage may have been forgotten altogether. Sunlight pours in through the gaps and catches in Cullen's hair, in his eyes. May he always look as alight as in this moment. 

Falling atop him, she is nonetheless careful to hold her own weight rather than burden him. But his lips press back with such punctuated sharpness that she can feel his desire through his pulse. Slotting her legs between his she thrusts against him, feeling him harden between their bodies.

"Darling," he whispers between their opened mouths meeting. "What do you want of me?"

She smiles wickedly, opening up his coat and tunic to trail her fingers across his bare chest, up to his adam’s apple. The bob of it below her palm is pleasant. Then back down his chest. Before she would have scraped. She'll scrape again once the scars are less sensitive. Two large patches of scar tissue forever marr his chest. They are bigger than her hand. White-pink and smoother than the surrounding skin. One hangs over his left pectoral muscle. The second is placed lower, slightly to the right of his navel. They remind her of how massive Corypheus' dragon was. How easily Cullen was crushed.

Her mouth presses against the higher scar first, licking against the artificially smooth skin. Cullen's hands work her ponytail down, tossing away the ribbon, so he can fist his fingers in her dark, curly hair.

"I want to see you too," he pleads.

The dress she wears only comes open at the side. Delicate little linen-covered buttons holding wisps of fabric in place. While his hands may be clumsier than hers, she knows he likes undressing her so she lets him work the buttons. With the garment pulled up over her head she dips back down to catch his lips.

His hands trace over her scar as well. The dragon slashed her superficially while he lay in tatters. Her mark looks worse than it is. That has always been the case. But now it appears larger as well. The wound keloided over as it healed, leaving a tough, ugly layer of tissue on top of the original wound. He is the only one who sees it really. Treats it with such affection she forgets how unattractive it actually is, cutting diagonally across her abdomen.

Just in her smallclothes, she grinds against his groin as he plays with her nipples. They do not have much time and the location, while secluded, is not exactly private. A little of the thrill comes from the possibility of getting caught. Master Dennett is on lunch.

"Do you want to taste me, Cullen?"

His fingers dip between her legs, massaging at her clit. She spreads her legs just a touch so his hand will fit. He groans, but does not answer directly. She asks again, an attempt to key him up.

"Should I sit on your face?"

"Sabina," his voice is laced with arousal, hint of a warning.

She smiles and pecks at his lips before sliding down her smalls. With practiced fingers she unlaces the front of his trousers and pulls out his cock. She strokes him slowly, building for a reaction.

"You'll be a good boy for me, yes?"

When he nods she shifts her body above him, placing her sex over his mouth. The hay under her shins scrapes. His hands reach up to fondle her breasts as he licks against her. Parting her labia with her own fingers gives him better access to pleasure her. One hand departs from her breast, traces the hard line of her scar before sliding inside her. She bucks against him as the finger curls, just enough pressure to stimulate. Looking down she can see his soft hair, open eyes. 

"Oh, fuck. You're going to make me cum," she whines.

His tongue increases in pace, flicking hungerly against her clit. But the penetration remains slow, languid. He's learned her so well. In their practice and play they have learned each other.

When she comes she keeps quiet. The wooden beams of the barn will not absorb noise. Her abdomen clenches as she twitches around the single digit inside her. Exhales slow and even to find her balance. Cullen keeps licking, probing, trying to bring her off again quickly. It works and in the intensity she nearly crashes atop him.

Repositioning against him, she sees how her wetness against his face is obvious in the light. Kisses all around his mouth tasting herself, slightly sour on her tongue. Keeping one hand on her breast, he firmly strokes himself with the other.

"Mmm," she bites at his ear. "You were very good. Want your reward?"

He laughs, "I thought I already got mine."

"I'll suck you," she offers. "You would like that, yes? My lips wrapped around your cock?"

Looking stunned at her words, he does not answer. It does not seem to matter how many times she speaks in such a vulgar manner, her words continue to wind him up. Makes her happy, to make such a good boy a little less. A little more like her. A mess.

She does not bother to undress him though she herself is naked. His back stays pressed down as she takes him into her mouth, just the first few inches. This is not one of her favorite acts but it makes him mewl so sweetly when she bobs up and down on the head of his cock. Licks along the bottom of his shaft and works the remainder with her hand. She likes to think it makes him forget his Maker and worship pleasure instead. Wicked thoughts. He is warm, hard in her mouth. She takes more, hitting up against the back of her throat before pulling off. He watches her the whole time, propped up on his elbows to get the right angle. She wants to speak the words that will make him claw.

"Do I look good like this?" When she speaks she continues to stroke. Keeping him close to the edge of orgasm she plays with his body and mind. "Does it make you want to see me on my knees more often? Taking your cock in my holes?"

From the way his abdomen clenches, the way he groans, she can tell he's precariously close. Wraps her lips around him and sucks until he cums down her throat. Bitter at the back of her mouth. His hands fist in her hair, holding her in place as she swallows him down. With the wave of his orgasm over his hands relax. She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand before settling against his shoulder, one arm thrown over his chest. They have a few minutes yet.

"Good?" She asks, wanting to make sure he has enjoyed himself as much as she has.

"Yes," he plays idly with her hair. "Would have liked to come inside you though."

Her nails patter against his chest. That's not really what he means to say. It's not specifically about ejaculating into her, though sometimes it's about that. Two days ago she rode him to completion. So it's not about that. She hasn't been denying him. It's about the thing she has not yet done, stopped doing, "Soon."

"You're still taking herbs." He knows her well enough. They can have this conversation now without the words in between. But he's going to push the subject.

She grunts against his side.

"I thought you wanted a child too?" In a way, he is not wrong.

"There is just so much left for me to do. We are making another trip to the Hissing Wastes, there are rifts that are still open. And the matter of Cassandra's replacement. You are injured. And we have another of Celene's balls approaching. It's an important political opportunity." She runs through the litany of things still to accomplish. They all weigh on her, pressing ever forward. The pitch of her voice shifts but she does not notice.

"Sabina," he takes her face between his hands, holding her quite still. "The world will not stop for us, but we also should not have to wait for the world to be perfect. The crisis is over. We both want this, don't we?"

Grabbing him by the wrists, she pulls his hands away. "But it's not time. There's so much more I need to do."

He laughs, "It's having a child, darling, not dying."

Waving him off, she reaches for her dress. Time has run out for now. "It means changing, though. I am suited for this. Running the Inquisition, fighting demons, brokering deals. Not for being a mother."

She catches the falling of his face. "You don't really think that's true."

"Fuck, I was right all along," she covers her mouth with her hand. "I'm not really what you want, am I? Now that it's all over, you expected me to become someone else." Anxiety pounds in her chest, a weighty, dreadful thing. "Someone soft and pretty, someone who tends house and blushes in your presence. A simple woman with a child at her hip."

His mouth sets into a thin line. "Do not insinuate things I have not said." He works at lacing his trousers, closing his coat.

"Then what is it you want?" Her boots are on, dress buttoned. She should leave him like this.

"You," he shakes his head, "us." His hands are on her again, stroking her cheek. "Don't shut me out, please. And don't think my wanting a child with you means I don't love you as you are. You don't need to become a different woman to be a mother. Maker, do you think becoming a father means I have to become a different man?"

That makes her laugh. "No, but I feel your reason for no longer entering combat is more noble than carrying a parasite."

He winces. "Don't think about it like that. Don't speak of our child like that."

They are at an impasse. And she no longer wishes to discuss this, so she kisses at the corner of his mouth before descending the stairs.

She can hear him stomping after her but when she does not turn to face him he gives up pursuit.

\--

Sera spits apple seeds off of the roof of the tavern. Sabina collects hers in her hand. Together they watch the sun beginning to set. Only about an hour of light left in the longer spring days. Sometimes they talk a great deal, but right now Sabina is not in the mood. She just likes watching Sera try to hit things with apple seeds. Her accuracy is better with a bow, a skill Sabina still struggles with. As much as she wants to learn, the precision at a distance will not come.

"You look ready to murder someone, so," Sera takes another bite of her apple, chews it with her mouth open. "Who is it and when do we leave?"

"Cassandra and I are leaving for the Hissing Wastes tomorrow."

"Ya?" Sera questions, "I 'ate that place."

"Good thing you're not coming."

That makes Sera pout.

"I need you to keep helping Warden Amell with his projects. Whatever he needs. But I need something from you too."

Rolling her eyes, Sera is not happy. "Of course you need something. And I like the 'ero just fine and everything. Real quiet, stays out of everyone's way. But he's a little off too, ya know?"

Sabina shrugs, "the Calling I guess?"

"Ah mean," Sera bites her lip. "People say he's the Hero of Ferelden or whatever, but are we sure? Like, sure, sure? Who remembers? Who can say for certain?"

"Alistair? And books? Daylen Amell. I'm old enough to remember. He looks like the illustrations. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, Andraste-loving heartthrob. Too bad about the being a mage bit."

"It's just suspicious, is all." Sera isn't likely to let this go.

"Good, I need you suspicious. Because you need to get information on him."

"What kind of information?" With that she perks up. Sera likes the challenge of subterfuge almost as she likes kicking in the faces of nobles who aren't Sabina. One day she might kick in Sabina's face too. Would be an honor and a privilege.

"I do not doubt he was the Warden who slayed the Archdemon. But there is something about that event he keeps a secret. Some piece of information that did not reach the storybooks. I need to know what that is."

Below them, a man and a woman walk side by side away from the tavern. Sera spits and manages to catch the man in the back of the neck. Turning, they can see it is Krem, a scowl on his features. 

He yells up to them both, well, mostly to Sera. "You would think that would have gotten old by now, little girl!"

"Oi! Who are you calling little girl, you grumpy old bugger!"

"I'm the same age as you!" Krem calls back up. The woman at his side does not turn. But from the robes as soft wave of dark hair, Sabina can tell well enough who it is.

"Yeah? Well in that case your girlfriend is a cradle-robber, eh?"

Bethany gasps and covers her face with her hands, though they still cannot see her.

"She's not my girlfriend!"

"Uh-huh." Sera settles back down and the pair leave in a hurry. 

Managing to contain her laughter until they are well gone, Sabina snickers openly once they are in the clear.

"So, where were we?" Sera asks.

"Warden Amell. Find out what he is hiding. About the Archdemon, about the Blight. About why he is dying now when he's only been a Warden ten years. I don't like secrets."

"You love secrets!" The blonde corrects.

"I don't like other people's secrets." She starts taking seeds from her palm, throwing them at barrels and other non-human targets. The same fun that Sera is allowed just out of her reach.


	3. When You Know You've Got This It's Easier to Dismiss the Obvious

It's odd, moving her few personal possessions out of the barracks and into her new room. Her new private room in the loft above Cullen's office. But that's not right either because now it's her office too. The second desk attests to that. Just as nice as Cullen's, heavy wood with a taller chair so she sits just as high. The whole world is sized for humans, the Inquisition included. Well, at least the bits she's seen. But she won't dwell on that. 

Because of the space restrictions, her desk tucked sort of diagonally against the wall. Skyhold is starting to strain for room. Weird since it seemed so grand an upgrade from the clutched houses at Haven.

Cullen may have vacated the room above, but he still works from his office. He is still the Commander. It's not a position Lace would want for herself, not at his expense. Maker, two years ago she was just a farm girl with damn good aim. She doesn't have the sort of battle training the Commander does, not by a longshot. Wasn't a Templar, wasn't even a soldier before all this. But she can read, she can calculate. Good at taking information and breaking it down into component parts.Assembling it back into something useful too. She can learn. Knows that much for certain.

More than that, she knows the smell of blood and sacrifice. There will be real lives in her hands, if she must lead in battle. She must be worthy to hold them. If the Commander believes her to be capable, she must prove he has made the correct decision.

She pulls books from his shelves. Things on troop formations and strategy. Starts by flipping through the tables of contents, making notes about which chapters are most relevant to her new position as Captain. 

Captain Harding. She likes how it sounds. For the time being, she's alone, so she says it out loud a few more times, laughing to herself. Her parents will be so proud.

The book chapters are easy enough to digest. Scribbling down notes she draws connections where she can. Tries to figure out which pieces go together. This is something she understands, the process of research. Took to it easily enough when she was assigned a position as scout. Buries herself in texts and hand drawn charts to make the pieces fit. She misses the opening and closing of the tower door.

Doesn't miss the way her desk rattles when a slender, stealthed figure bumps into the corner and curses "Maker!"

"Sera?"

"Ugh! Ruined the surprise," the blonde exits stealth, switching from a field of shimmers to solid. Her hair is in her eyes. Needs a haircut probably. But Lace is more interested in the way her petal pink lips curve upwards. 

"Can I help you with something?" Lace tucks her pen between the pages to mark her spot in the text.

"Came to see the new Captain in action." There isn't much on Lace's desk yet, but Sera will paw at anything. If she's not careful, Lace will find herself with four fewer pens than when the conversation began. And she's pretty sure she only has two pens right now.

Sera puts her hands flat on the desk, leaning over and trying to peek down Lace's tunic. She's got no sense of subtlety. One of the reasons Lace loves her, she supposes. 

"Not much in terms of action," she admits.

With a clumsy wink Sera comes back, "there could be."

Lace rolls her eyes but doesn't tell Sera to leave. The company is nice. Keeps that pit of anxiety about living up to expectations at bay. "This maybe isn't the time, or the place."

"What? For a shag? Because I'm fairly certain Lady and Lord Trevelyan have beaten us to the punch, love. This is definitely the place." Sera is practically crawling on top the desk. Her delicate hands on the covers of books Lace hasn't gotten to read yet. "Also don't you live here now? I was looking forward to getting to know your new quarters."

They are alone, after all, so Lace leans forward just enough to peck at Sera's lips. But, naturally, Sera isn't satisfied with just that, sticking her fingers in the back of Lace's copper hair and holding their mouths together, laughing through the contact. Her eyes get so bright like this. Looks like she's truly happy, clouds of trouble that too often swirl above her fair head banished.

"Are you going to show me upstairs or do you want to do it on your desk?"

Lace groans. Really would like both. But also neither because she does not want to fuck up this promotion. But, Maker, if she doesn't like the idea of Sera spread out like a pale, wanton gift against the dark surface of her desk, all legs and breasts and wet for her. And yeah, upstairs is her room now. All the paperwork for change of quarters signed. But that doesn't mean they can just sneak off in the middle of the day. Not when anyone could wander in needing her attention. Not when a Commander Cullen could arrive to use his own desk, in the office that is still really his.

But Sera's lips taste so sweet and a little waxy against hers that she can't help but grab the front of her dress and pull her close. With a clever smile on her lips, Sera climbs over the desk, kicking one book off the edge. But she doesn't stop there, clambering all the way over into Lace's lap and straddling her. It's a bit of an odd fit, Sera's narrow limbs are all over the place. But she's warm and happy and that makes Lace warm and happy. Sera's hands are at her shoulders, the curtain of her short, dense hair just barely hiding their faces.

When the door creaks open they both scramble. Sera falls out of her lap, cursing on the way down as she hits the stone floor. Lace, horrified, tries to look busy, flipping to a random page of a book she wasn't even intending to read. 

Hopping to her feet, Sera tries to look nonchalant and ends up conjuring the opposite. Literally starts to whistle and averts her eyes as Commander Cullen comes through the door. She looks at the ceiling and tries to stick her hands in pockets her dress doesn't have. Cullen's eyes narrow, but he says nothing of the matter, simply greets Lace with a short, "Captain," and then Sera with her name.

He takes his seat, beginning to leaf through the reports from this morning he did not finish. Knowing she now has no chance of getting Lace alone, Sera kisses her cheek and excuses herself, fluttering out the door. It is not as if their relationship is a secret. Sera isn't even in the Inquisition hierarchy proper. Plus the Commander marrying the Inquisitor kind of threw any objections regarding fraternization out the thinly-paned window.

They work in silence for some time, both scratching away at parchments, before Cullen poses a question. "Do you feel you are adjusting well?"

She takes a moment to consider her answer. "Well? Yes. I've taken it upon myself to read more on field tactics. I don't have a proper military education."

"Yes, of course. You have a good eye for positioning already. But the theory may prove useful as well." He smiles, but it is stiff.

"Uh, are you adjusting to the adjustment in your duties?" She cannot think of a better way to phrase the question. Only he looks like something is troubling him.

"Yes, yes I'm fine." It's clear he is not. "I will be leaving Skyhold for several days. Maybe a week. Maybe more. There is a matter to which I must attend. You may handle my daily reports in my absence."

Since it seems really unlikely for a full scale war to break out in a matter of a few days, Lace isn't that troubled. But, then again, the events of the last two years were pretty unlikely too, so who knows?

"Of course, Commander." She turns back to her book, unsure if there is more.

"Captain Harding, may I ask you a personal question." Oh. Great.

Looking up from her notes, she's suitably confused. "Sure, but maybe don't call me Captain if that's the case?"

He sighs, pulling at his hair in frustration. "What would you give up for Sera?"

Not the question she was expecting, but alright. "Do you want the Inquisition approved answer or the real one?"

"The real one, Lace."

She bites at the end of her pen. "Everything. More than I probably should for my own well being. She's totally batty. Quite unstable at her worst. But I love her." Doesn't dare ask why this is a question he has. It's obvious enough that it's really not about her and Sera.

Cullen exhales deeply, doesn't let go of his hair. "My assistant is at your disposal if you need anything. If there is a requisition that needs immediate attention beyond your rank, Leliana may sign in in my place. But most things should now be within your power. Otherwise, I trust your decisions. If I did not, you would not hold the position you now do."

Lace tries not to ask stupid questions. Drawing connections where others cannot see them is supposed to be one of her strong suits. It's why as a fresh farm girl she was made lead scout of the Inquisition. Why she's now Captain of its forces. But this question she just must ask. "Where are you going?"

"Haven."

But Haven is nothing. It used to be ruins, half burned and the other half under snow. Now it's just a hole in the ground. Well, a hole in the ground with other bits and pieces of ground strewn all over the place. There's nothing there. Not for Cullen, not for anyone.

He twists the ring on his finger, turning it round and round.

\--

Before Commander Cullen leaves, Inquisitor Trevelyan does. Mounted on her light-colored horse with her hair tightly tied back, she looks a bit like a story book prince. All broad shoulders and thin body. Lace knows she can look like the storybook princess too. Soft curls and gentle drape. But that's not the aesthetic she's going for here.

Seeker Pentaghast rides beside her, straight backed and proud. Weird to think she's the next Divine. Lace can't see her as anything other than a warrior. She just so damn good at that role. But maybe she's not giving it up as Divine, just riding off into a different battle. 

If the murmurs are to be believed, that's the real war for Thedas now. The one at the heart of the Chantry. And everyone knows the Inquisitor can't fight that one. They'd tar and feather and throw her out within minutes for that big mouth of hers. Once, when she had been drinking with Bull, she shouted from the roof of the tavern that if the Maker were real, let Him come to her so she could spit in His face. Not the best impression to make.

Griping from the ground, Bull says he wants to go. Never mind what he said about the Wastes last time. Lace is just glad she's not going. The sky there gives her nightmares. She's a surfacer through and through, but the sky of the Hissing Wastes makes her wonder if there isn't something to the phrase "it's in your blood." Maybe not though, because Varric hates it too. He says the sky there is like a tomb. So maybe it's the opposite of falling up like those asshole "real dwarves" say. They're both afraid of being buried.

Though the Inquisitor is already prepared to leave, when Cullen rushes from the keep, she jumps down from her horse. At first she looks cross, her full lips set in a line. But Cullen pays that no heed, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. Lace watches her posture loosen, how she melts against him and kisses the side of his face. Then his lips. They exchange quiet words that Lace cannot hear before he helps her back onto her mount. 

Lace doesn't know what all that is about. If she tried, she could find out. But if it's important it'll be gossip anyway.


	4. Roads Between Intention and Execution of a Well-Meaning Idea

The heavy steps of Cullen's mount make his chest hurt with each footfall. But out of pride he doesn't say a word to Anders, who rides beside him. He suspects the mage already knows, being in such close proximity and already familiar with Cullen's ailments. There isn't anything he can do about that, so he keeps his eyes on the path ahead hoping it will prove kinder.

What he told Harding is true. Sort of. He is going to Haven. Only that's just a first stop. They'll travel on to the remnants of Lothering as well, where the Blight poisoned the land so thoroughly nothing has grown for ten years. Finally, to Denerim with a task that seems so oddly uncomfortable that Daylen wrung his hands the whole time while explaining precisely what it is he needs. The trip will take weeks, probably a little over a month. But Sabina will be gone nearly as long. They will be on opposite ends of the continent. 

Daylen could not come with them, saying he had experiments yet to run while waiting on the materials from Anders and Cullen. Sera is procuring something as well. Later on, in a quiet voice, he admitted that he was also afraid of dying during the journey, that his death would somehow be a bother. Anders, with uncharacteristic kindness said Daylen is never a bother. And that if he dies before they return, he'll raise him just to kill him.

That Cullen and Anders have to travel together is bothersome enough. One of them should have stayed to keep Daylen company, tell him terrible jokes, and ease his shattering mind. But the argument was made that neither should travel alone. Sera had already been dispatched to the Western Approach. 

When Anders brought up the fact that Sera was traveling alone, Daylen asked if either of them could work stealth mechanics. He had them there.

Really, Cullen should not be here at all. But the thought of a month alone at Skyhold with no Sabina, no training, makes his skin itch. He also wants very badly to help Daylen. It seems so cruel that the man who saved Thedas would be so easily tossed aside when he became politically inconvenient. Though those at Skyhold know who he is, Josephine does not make it public knowledge that they are sheltering the Hero of Ferelden. Despite everything else, Daylen is a bit of a powder keg. News from Weisshaupt is scarce, and not promising when it does arrive in bits and pieces. 

"Your lungs still hurt?" Anders asks.

Cullen shakes his head, "Not all the time."

Anders narrows his eyes, not keeping them on the path ahead. "I could try to fix it."

"With the two of us alone in the wilderness? You'd probably just murder me and make a run for it."

"Believe me, Templar, if I wanted to escape, I could have long ago."

Bristling at the title, Cullen corrects him. "I'm not a Templar. Not anymore."

"You will always be what you are. Just as I will be who I am."

"And who is that," Cullen struggles to stay focused on the path. "A deserter? A terrorist? A murderer? An abomination?"

"Yes," the drop in volume makes Anders statement all the more threatening. "I am all those things."

They ride on in silence.

\--

Making camp at Haven, the two prepare to settle down for the night. Cullen wants to scrape the samples for Daylen before they rest. This way they can travel on to Lothering in the morning without delay. 

They camp far enough away from the Red Lyrium deposits as to not contaminate themselves further. However, Daylen has confirmed they both have traces of it in their body. Likely everyone cut by Knight-Commander Meredith's blade carries some degree of infection. Maybe everyone who fought at the Gallows. Varric shows only the faintest traces. But as a dwarf he is lyrium resistant and against Meredith he shot from the balconies. 

The Red Lyrium is too unstable, literally and figuratively, to take samples directly. Instead Cullen gathers up soil, chips away at nearby rocks, investigates anything tinged Fade-green. Each sample goes into a glass jar to which he affixes a label. There are signs of Coryphaeus everywhere, choking the landscape. 

This was the final resting place of Andraste. Now it is nothing but a jagged scar. Cullen mourns the loss of this place again and again. It is all anyone can do.

When he returns to camp Anders is sitting by the fire, roasting meat. He plays with small stones in the palm of his hand.

"I have the samples." Cullen says. They have nothing more to discuss. He sits by the fire and lets it warm his feet. Though spring has broken, in the mountains the chill still lingers.

"Maybe I should have waited for you to light the fire," Anders taunts.

"I have no intention on following up on that rather odd event. I do not know if I could even replicate it."

"You should try," Anders offers.

"Well, I'm certainly not doing anything on your account."

They eat in silence. The meat is gamey and Cullen does not dare ask after its origins. While they must share the tent, there couldn't be a greater gulf between them.

Cullen doesn't know exactly what causes the faint ringing in his ears. It is not something he wishes to discuss with Anders. 

He remembers to take his lyrium. He cannot forget.

\--

As they pass through the Arling of Redcliff he considers visiting his sister. But he has nothing to say to her. She writes, as diligently as ever. Sometimes he replies in short bursts. 

Her last letter asked why she had to hear of his marriage by way of a notice pinned to the Chantry Board. She ended by writing that she is happy for him. He deserves something good, for once. He still hasn't answered that one.

They don't stop to visit her. 

Moving on to the charred, poisoned remains of Lothering is far more important. It is also the more comfortable option. Cullen knows well enough he has forgotten how to be a brother.

\--

At Lothering he sets up camp while Anders collects samples. It's the same menagerie of substances. Dirt, debris, things that the taint holds onto and won't let go. 

This is a magic, a corruption, that is in Anders but not in Cullen. It is in Sabina as well, through the twists of fate. To carry the taint isn't a burden she should have to bear. She is not a Warden and never will be one.

For a brief moment he considers trying to light the fire with a flick of his wrist. But he doesn't know for certain that would work. A greater terror might rest deep within him. He might accidentally draw it out. Instead, Anders arrives just then to light the kindling. Cullen could have done it properly with flint and steel.

There are questions to which he has no answer. Questions Anders may have already asked himself or others. But it is hard, needing assistance from one he has wronged and who has wronged him in return. Beyond their personal animosity, Anders is not a man to be trusted.

"Why don't you run?" 

Anders rolls the stones in his palm. "Trevelyan can tear open the Veil. I want to get inside the Fade."

"Why?" He nearly asks if it is to finish what Coryphaeus started. That Anders might wish to make himself a god. He is certainly selfish enough.

"Marian." He averts his eyes, offering nothing more on the subject.

\-- 

On the road to Denerim, again beside the fire, Cullen dares to ask another question. While they are not on friendly terms, they no longer bicker back and forth like bitter children. Their time together has dulled the sting. Or perhaps they are too exhausted to continue hating each other.

"How Hawke contracted the taint..."

Anders laughs, a dark, short chuckle. He hangs his head and shakes it. "I gave it to her. That is obvious enough. Only," sighing deeply he continues, "she wanted a baby so badly. A family. I should have known better, that it would never work. I knew the conceptions were tainted, wrong. But I didn't realize it would pass to her. Wardens believe themselves to be near-sterile. That is kinder than the truth."

Of the next question he doesn't truly want an answer. He's afraid it will not be the one he wants. "So is it impossible then? For Sabina?"

"Of course you would make this about you." He scuffs his feet against the ground, kicking dirt into the flames before heading to the tent without eating.

Cullen takes his lyrium dose by the fire. Letting his vision blur in the immediate high, he watches the stars inch across the blanket of the sky.

\-- 

As they ride, Anders does answer his question. They have not been speaking, but he nonetheless answers. "I believe the failed pregnancies were because I had gone through the Joining, not that Marian had low levels of corruption. So to answer, no, I don't think you and Trevelyan should encounter the same issue. At least not on that account."

While that brings Cullen some level of comfort, it does not break the tension between him and Anders.

\--

When they leave their horses at the Denerim stables, Cullen realizes his lungs no longer hurt. Neither do his sides or chest. He feels well. Perhaps he is not yet well enough for combat, but the exercise of riding has been enough to shake away some of his feebleness. 

Dressed simply as they are, neither are recognized. Wanted posters calling for Anders arrest or immediate beheading have long since been replaced with celebrations of Coryphaeus' defeat. And though the illustration plates in Varric's book are accurate enough, the posters always made Anders into a monster of a man. He's tall, lanky, with a bit of a hook to his nose. But the images calling for his head turned him into a vile beast of nightmare.

As for Cullen, he's never seen an illustration of himself, though he knows they exist. Sabina is the public face of the Inquisition, though it is a role she hates. Her pictorial representations are particularly inaccurate.

They have coin enough to rent separate rooms at the inn but are told there is only one available. Wonderful. 

The proprietor offers a girl for the night as well, if either are so inclined. He says the look like their journey has been a long, lonely one. Both Anders and Cullen hold up their left hands in unison, showing their marriage bands. The gesture troubles Cullen, to think he would have a similar impulse to Anders.

He showers in the simple bath, the water warm against his skin. Can't help but think of Sabina, the soft curl of her hair, the apex of her thighs and long, dancer's legs. It has been a long, lonely journey. But there isn't time for that. He has to push those thoughts away.

As Cullen prepares for bed, Anders reads by lamplight. Closing the book sharply, it would appear they are speaking again. 

"I doubt I will get an honest answer from you. But I must try." Anders stares at the ceiling as he speaks. "Would Trevelyan kill Marian on purpose? To eliminate her?"

He does not hesitate. "No. She is practical, not cruel. She had to make a decision in the moment, and she acted."

"For what, to save Alistair? That man has done nothing in his entire life but run from responsibility. Marian did nothing but shoulder it." 

Cullen catches the way Anders voice cracks.

"I did nothing but add to her burdens. And she let me live. She loved me still." Breathing steadying through his words, Anders continues, "Please. I have to go to the Fade. I have to find her."

That is a promise Cullen cannot make. "You must speak to Sabina."

“I am not asking as an agent of the Inquisition.”

Rolling over, so he can no longer see Cullen’s face, Anders does not specify in what capacity he is asking this favor. It takes Cullen a long time to realize that while they are not kind to one another, they are almost friends.

\--

In the morning they set out to complete their last task for Daylen. It takes them some time, and quite a bit of asking around, to locate the correct house. A shoddy little thing with holes in the thatched roof. The first stair to the entrance is broken too. But it is not so unlike other homes in the poorer stretches of the capital. He lets Anders knock. When it comes to speaking to strangers, the mage is somewhat more composed. 

A woman opens the door. Simple, somewhat pretty, with dark-gold hair and tired eyes. Inside, a child of maybe twelve sits at the table, writing in slow, deliberate motions. 

“What?” She is curt, direct.

“I am Warden Anders,” he begins.

Her eyes narrow sharply. “You better have gold.”

“Yes,” Anders acts unsurprised, “of course.”

Goldanna lets them into her home. The child looks up but does not say anything. His hair falls into his eyes as he practices his penmanship. 

Daylen warned them this woman would be unpleasant at best, outright hostile at worst, but he absolutely must get samples from her. If they said they were with the Wardens, she might listen. If they said they have gold, she might too. At the time, Anders said he knew who she was well enough.

“What do you want?” She crosses her arms over her chest, offering them nothing.

“We need a sample of your blood.”

Goldanna laughs as if Anders has told a truly wonderful joke. “You say you’re a Warden, eh? Everyone says there aren’t any Wardens left on the whole continent. the Inquisition sent them all to their graves.”

“We are with the Inquisition, ma’am,” Cullen offers, but he is unsure if that makes things better or worse.

“Didn’t know that the Inquisition sent such pretty boys on errands.” 

Cullen ignores the remark. Even if he didn’t, Anders tries to steer the conversation back on subject. 

“We are prepared to pay you. I am a healer, it should not be bothersome.”

Looking around the room, Cullen sees remnants of other children, stacked beds in the corner, simple toys on the floor. Her home has no curtains, little of comfort.

“This is about that brother of mine, isn’t it? What’s his name?”

“Warden Alistair.”

Cullen didn’t know that this is Alistair's sister. Daylen hadn’t said. 

“That’s the one. Maker, he’s spent his whole life being so _special_. And I’m supposed to care about him on account of what? Some shred of shared blood? And now you want to take my blood too?”

“We will pay you.” Anders repeats, through gritted teeth, like it will make a bit of difference. 

It does make a difference, though. With a huff, Goldanna pulls up her sleeve, offering her arm to Anders.

“Normally it is safest for you to sit during the process.”

\--

Cullen waits for them to leave Goldanna’s home before asking any additional questions.

“I did not realize Alistair had family.”

Anders laughs, “He doesn’t have a family, but he has blood, at least. Some of us don't even have that.”

That statement cuts him. Cullen realizes how desperately alone Anders must be. He has no letters from sisters to ignore, no wife with whom to sweetly quarrel.


	5. The Sky Will Catch You Yet, Marionettes of Fate

The sharp light of the fire makes Cassandra's dark hair shine like obsidian glass. Sabina takes her seat next to the Seeker, a jar of polish in her hand. They have sat like this many times before, discussing the Inquisition by the fire as Sabina paints her nails bright hues. The polish is expensive, imported from Antiva because she likes it better than the Orlesian style paints. Once she finishes coating her nails she uses the heat of the fire to help them dry.

This is their last set of missions together. The Seeker and the Inquisitor. Well, first Sabina was the prisoner, then the Herald of Andraste, then the Inquisitor. Though no one ever explained to her how she could be the Herald of a woman she has so little concern for. No matter how loudly she shouted, no one would listen.

In their final days together in the Hissing Wastes, Sabina wants nothing more than to enjoy the company of the woman she knows, respects so highly, before she becomes someone else. 

Cassandra told her she's planning on taking the name Victoria I. Sabina doesn't care. No, she does. She hates it. And part of her hates Cassandra for leaving. The rest of her wants to conjure the words that will make her friend stay.

"We haven't always seen eye to eye," Sabina starts. Beside her Cassandra is already smiling.

"Too many of our exchanges begin with that statement."

Sabina laughs. Almost smudges her polish when she does. "It is just that I don't want to see you go. You know how I fight better than anyone."

Cassandra rolls her eyes. "Yes, such a skill to recognize that you disappear, stab things in the back, whether or not I have marked them as the proper target, and then disappear again."

"I know, but otherwise I am surrounded by idiots. I swear, they think that once in awhile I'll want to stab someone in the front. Who does that?"

Finishing with her polish, Sabina sets the bottle aside. 

"I will miss you too, friend."

They spend several minutes in silence, watching the stars as they peek through the heavy blanket of the clouds. Here in the Wastes the sky seems to never end. It reaches down to meet the ground. Sabina feels very small here.

"I don't know what I'll do."

"You faced down Coryphaeus without me. You'll survive."

"Yes," Sabina says dryly, "because you fell off the platform. Though, I suppose I am happy it was not you crushed underfoot."

"You say that is if you are glad Cullen was." Her eyes go wide. No one believes in love like Cassandra Pentaghast. It is one of those characteristics they never shared. Shocking, really, that Sabina found someone to care for first.

"No, of course not." She can't find quite the right words. "He lived. You might have lived too. I cannot say either one of you in that position would have been better than the other. That I would have felt any differently."

"But you love him, do you not?" Cassandra wants romance to be found in the most unlikely of places. Inside Sabina is perhaps the most unlikely of all.

"Of course, but I love you too. You may say it is different, but it's not very much so." In some ways it is easier to say she loves Cassandra as one of her dearest friends. Doing so is more familiar than the irrational way she cares for Cullen. Even now she cannot justify it.

Cassandra shakes her head. They have never agreed on this subject.

"I hope being Divine does not change you."

"And I hope you do not declare war on the Chantry as you are always threatening."

"I only threaten that after a bottle of wine," Sabina smiles, but there is some truth to it.

\--

She can hear noises from the rift. Everyone can. The screeching and bleating of terrified demons seeping through the holes in the Fade. They spill out coating the sand with a green slime that smells sharply of the acidic.

Wisps of things are easily dispatched, Dorian and Bethany using fire and force to slay them before Cassandra and Sabina can even approach. Such demons are easy kills. Sabina is hoping for more.

She gets her wish when the Pride demon tears through the opening. The size of it makes the edges of the rift pulse and stretch. It is already giving off sparks as it crosses the thin boundary between worlds.

Pride is the demon she is most eager to fight. When it falls through the rifts each time she wants nothing more than to strike it down, tear it to pieces. It is the demon those who would stand against the Inquisition accuse her of courting.

Cassandra pulls the beast towards her as Sabina activates her stealth. Dancing to its side, she draws her blades against its scaled torso, splitting skin apart. If she drives the blades too deep they will stick. Instead, she plans on cutting the demon to shreds. 

Perhaps one slash is too deep and Pride turns away from Cassandra, looking for the specter who ribbons its flesh, carves it up like a roast while remaining ever out of sight. To increase the pressure, the thrill of it, Sabina stays visible for a moment, letting Pride catch sight of her before shimmering away. Sparks cast by the demon chase her but manage to only hit empty spaces where she no longer stands.

Taunting it forward, Cassandra keeps it away from the mages who still work on the lesser demons that seem nearly endless. Once Pride is down, Sabina should be able to close the rift. Twirling, she cuts at its legs, making it fall forward. Familiar with this tactic, Cassandra side steps out of the way of the falling demon. 

With Pride on the ground, Sabina jumps on its back, plunging one of her blades into its neck. Under her the demon sputters and fades, dematerializing back into the Fade until she is standing again on solid ground. Sheathing her daggers, she turns. Instead of raising her left hand she picks up her right. 

Aiming at one of the wisps she clears her mind, focuses her energy in the little demon ahead. Inhale, exhale, lightning. The sparks fly from her hand but sputter out before reaching the target. A burst of fire rushes past her feeble attempt.

"Anytime you would like to close that hole in the world, Inquisitor?" Dorian calls from somewhere over her shoulder.

Cursing to herself she turns her attention to the rift. The Anchor glows on her left hand, brighter than anything else in the twilight. Through the Veil she hears the shrieks of demons still on the other side. A faint noise behind the wails calls to her. It wants her to step through. She's seduced by it. But she is not to cross the divide.

Using the Anchor drains her, little by little. But this rift closes, as all others have. Catching her breath she remembers this is the side of the Veil that needs her.

\--

Dorian approaches her, his mouth set in a thin line under the twirl of his mustache. His arms cross over his chest as he speaks. "Funny little trick there. Shame it didn't work."

She waves him off, "One day I might be able to hit something."

"I question the appropriateness of your trying to conjure magic so close to a rift. It's bound to attract even more demons. Unless that's what you want, more demons?"

"Right, next time I'll remind you and Bethany that your sticks are simply for poking demons as hard as you can manage with your thin little arms."

Dorian's eyes narrow. "Bethany and I have been casting since we were children. We've had years of training, been through Harrowings. And my arms are hardly as spindly as you claim."

"You said Tevinter Harrowings are a joke."

"I said they are a performance," he quips back. "You discovered this power of yours, what, a few months ago? And it just wasted time."

“Yes, Dorian,” she rolls her eyes, “because you never cast magic for show.” Abruptly she turns on her heels, unwilling to be lectured when she full well knows the calculated risks of the trick she tried to perform. One day it will work as she intends. 

\--

The canvas of her tent blocks the endless sky but she knows it is still there. She will be glad when they are done with the Hissing Wastes for good. Just one last rift to close tomorrow and it will be finished. This, her last mission with Cassandra, is bittersweet. 

Before, she wanted all of this to be over. Now, she does not know what to do with the change ahead. Vivienne has already returned to Empress Celene’s service; Cassandra will be Divine. It is a small comfort that Dorian and Bull are too tangled in their own business to think of leaving the Inquisition at the present moment. The changes around her leave her with few options in terms of staffing for expeditions, but the expeditions too will peter out. 

This is not the life she wanted but it is the life she now has.

The light of the fire outside barely illuminates the front of her tent, casting the space inside with a faint glow.

Her thoughts drift from the Inquisition to herself. 

Rolling onto her back, Sabina slips her hand into her smalls. Eyes closed, she takes her nub between her index and middle fingers to pleasure herself. 

There is little noise outside. The sound of the wind against the canvas of the tents is louder than any voice she can make out. 

Her eyes drift closed as she works herself with her fingers. While she has been competent in bringing herself to orgasm since she was a teen, the fantasies have changed somewhat. Now, she realizes, she no longer thinks of nameless men or women, skin and sex without distinguishing features. She thinks on the particularities of the man she has waiting for her at Skyhold. The way his shoulders cover hers when he is above her, sun catching in his golden hair. How when he lays below her the white sheets of their bed make the lightness of his skin more apparent. The tone of his voice drops when he desires her and raises as he comes for her. 

Dwelling on a specific scene she continues. Him beneath her, buried inside. How he fills her quite comfortably. Smiling because he is happy. Not only happy for the sake of completion but for having her around him. He always looks so in love. This life he did not choose either, but they nonetheless have together. His hips roll up to meet her as she presses down. The burn of friction between their bodies. His hands are always at her breasts, small as they are. Sensitive, though. 

In the privacy of her tent, she brings one hand to her breast, playing with her nipple, pinching and turning. She is often rougher with herself than Cullen is with her.

He grabs at her breasts as she rides him, pressing against the points that bring her the most pleasure. Her hands press to his chest, holding him down though he is at her mercy in any case. Amber eyes blown wide with pleasure, he says her name, as many times as she needs to convince her he is still here and she is here with him. 

He could just as soon take her, toss her around and bend her as he pleases. But he won’t. He won’t because he loves her. And that’s part of the appeal. That he is stronger, though she is not weak. The things he could do if he were a different man. But he’s not. He’s Cullen. There is nothing that he would deny her. 

As she comes with the thought of his cock inside her she keeps very quiet. There is no guarantee that the wind will swallow her sobs.

It hits her quite suddenly that she misses him very much. Their relationship has always been a series of separations and reunions as their positions within the Inquisition require. He was right when he said the world will not wait for them. It will always be as it is now, if they allow it. This should not be a decision that troubles her so greatly. 

From the time she was a girl, Sabina knew it was familial duty for her to produce an heir. She cannot help but think her anxiety now stems from something else. The sudden admission that having a child with Cullen would not be a chore, merely a duty. Rather, she would want to be good to them. And she’s not sure she can be. 

She defeated Coryphaeus. No one may take that away from her. Her service to Thedas will never be complete, that much is certain. Not the choice she would have made. But here she is. Only now, she must make the best of it.

And part of that is Cullen. Though she would not say it aloud, part of her is Cullen, the way they are now twined together. 

She thinks on a child that does not yet exist. One with his light eyes and her dark hair. Her hand covers her mouth when she laughs, imagining just how curly-haired their child would be with the two of them as parents. No escaping it really. Her fingers dance along her still-flat abdomen, skillfully avoiding the long scar.

That night she does not take her dose of herbs. Instead she crawls out of her bedroll to sit for some time by the fire. She challenges the sky to come down and seize her. The world will not end because of this.


	6. We Were Boys Once and Men Now but That Doesn't Mean a Damn Thing to the Ones Who Paid the Price We Could Not

Daylen,

I haven’t been able to write from Weisshaupt. Yes, yes, you can scold me later. Things did not go as planned. Actually, I don’t know what it was I planned. But it didn’t go like that...Planning. Whatever it is I may or may not have planned. You know how it goes. “Blah blah blah, let’s not bother listening to reason. It’s just Alistair, who cares what he has to say?!” The more I tried to explain the more complicated things became. I’m not sure I should say more in this letter. I may have said too much already. Only I want to speak. Or write, or whatever. 

I miss you.

Yours Always,

Alistair

\--

Daylen takes the bit of parchment and folds it delicately between his stained fingers. It is a simple thing he does not wish to part with. Arriving some days ago, there is no indication from where it was sent. The Inquisition crow, usually so carefully tagged to a point of origin, had bare little feet. 

With it now folded he does not know where to place it. If he puts it down he’s afraid it’ll just as soon be torn, or turned to ash, or any other number of possibilities that really wouldn’t happen. But they could happen, maybe. Most of all he wants to press the letter against his skin, burn each word there against his flesh because Alistair is at least alive. And knowing that much, Daylen can no longer be angry that he has been waiting months without news from him. There will be time enough to be angry later.

In the end he tucks it between the pages of his journal. He does not write in it often, or at all really, but he keeps the little leather bound book all the same. Most things he can remember without assistance, like which combination of herbs and powders and blood he has already tried in his experiments. The pattern of lyrium under his micro-scope is already burned into his retinas. Such things are easy to memorize. But this interval is too important for him to forget. The moment he knew Alistair was coming back to him.

\-- 

To quiet the Calling he drinks down three flasks of lyrium, one right after another. It sticks to the inside of his throat, heavy and cloying. Lyrium has been his friend since he was old enough to know he was lonely. The walls of Kinlock were supposed to protect him. In a way he was protected, from everything good and ill beyond those walls.

He imagined the world outside. The sights and sounds and smells. It seems very silly now, to dwell on such things when he has seen the expanse of the continent, more than most men could ever hope to see. But in many ways he is still that little boy. 

Four years a boy/Sixteen caged/Ten bound.

His mother, her hair pinned up, beautiful, golden, holding him in her arms though he was already too old for such coddling. She kissed his nose and told him to be good. The templars would take care of him; the other mages would teach him. Andraste loved him. 

But she didn’t say that she loved him. Not when the templars came, shiny and bright in their armor, faces covered under their helmets. No, his mother did not say that she loved him, but Andraste did.

He was too young then to know all the words to the Chant. But nonetheless he said them over and over, the words he did know. The Chant came from his lips, a tired litany as the templars carried him away. He fell asleep against one of their shoulders. What he didn’t say aloud was his wish for Andraste to take him then, if she loved him so. He wished only to be with those who loved him, having so much love to give in return. 

The Fade opens up around him. It has been a long time since he dreamed properly. The Calling is such a racket in his ears that it is hard for him to find the right path. But it is as if his memories of the templars have led him here, to a quiet place between the chaos he suspects still reigns. The Veil is still full of holes. Spirits still quake in abject fear.

He steps into the Circle Tower, not as he is now, but as he was at nineteen. Some who know him only in passing will claim little has changed about him. He is still gentle, soft spoken, a little shy. But he knows better, he has changed, profoundly. 

Walking the halls of the Tower he knows by heart, with every breath of his lungs, he traces his fingers along the bindings of books, feeling nothing. This was never his home. He does not know where the Fade is leading him. Walking the path nonetheless, he knows there must be something to learn. Otherwise he would not be here.

The scenery shifts as he moves from room to room, but the layout is not the one he knows any longer, merely the one the Fade needs to show him. Walls shift around his apparition, templars and mages he once knew appearing and disappearing. They are all dead now. He saw their charred bodies when he returned as a Warden.

Out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of Wynne. Trying to run, he already knows he cannot reach her.

Instead he stands in the empty Harrowing chamber. Without his staff. Without his robes. Bare before judgement. But it is not the templars who surround him, picking him apart piece by piece. No, he is alone, save for one.

“Neria.”

She picks her head up from between her knees but remains seated, balled up onto herself, on the ground. Cocking her head to one side, she appraises him. This lovely girl who failed just before he managed to succeed. 

When he entered the chamber ten years ago, her blood was on the walls, on Cullen’s sword, against his chest plate. A reminder of what could become of him.

“You came,” her voice is only a whimper. “I thought you had come before.”

Clumsily, she pushes herself up from the ground, unashamed of her nakedness, or his. The gash in her chest weeps as if it were real, red and torn, soaking her pale body. She wobbles on her feet and Daylen reaches out to grab her, but there is nothing in his hands. When he looks at her face, her pale eyes are tinged red.

“When did you think I had come?”

She holds onto herself, narrow limbs crossing her small body, only partially obscuring the wound. “I thought it was you who came before. With the Anchored one.”

Daylen’s eyes go wide. Neria saw the Inquisitor in the Fade, if this is indeed the poor girl from the Circle. 

“Inquisitor Trevelyan, yes? You saw her here? And the others?”

“I thought it was you, Daylen,” reaching forward, she grabs at his shoulders, but they pass through one another yet again. “They had your eyes.”

“Hawke!” He exclaims, “is she here?” His hands begin to tremble. What if Anders was right? Marian has been trapped here in the Fade all along. But Neria has not said she is here now, only that she saw her when the Inquisitor walked between worlds.

Neria’s eyes roll back in her head as she speaks, as if she is a demon. Her form looks so real Daylen has forgotten that Neria has been a decade dead. This is a spirit, a demon, or a memory. The real girl was so quiet, so reserved, he cannot imagine this is a demon, not if it is some remnant of her. The Maker would not be so cruel.

“The Anchored-one smelled of him. Down to their hair, their pores. Reeked of him. Cullen. The Other had your eyes. I’d thought they’d stolen them. Plucked them from your skull and carried them around as a prize. Daylen.”

Her lithe form begins shaking, vibrating really. Little tremors build and build. Daylen is afraid she is coming apart at the edges, whatever apparition she is dissipating before his very eyes. 

Statues of templars fill the room, their swords pointed at Neria’s bare body. For their helmets he cannot see their faces. There is more he needs before this dream ends.

“Neria, what happened to her? The Other, the one with my eyes?” He must know. He must tell Anders what has become of Marian.

The skin starts melting from her bones, rejoining the uneven surfaces of the Fade from which she was first conjured. “Bring your eyes. Bring my love. And I will show you.”

He wakes with a start, covered in cold sweat. The cot across from his is empty, as it has been for weeks. It was Alistair’s, then Anders’ when he became a prisoner in name only. Anders and Cullen have not yet returned but Daylen needs them. Needs someone. But as always, he is alone.

Finding sleep again is impossible so he pulls on his robes, lights a candle, and leaves for the Undercroft. 

On his way down the stone steps he thinks about Neria’s eyes, impossibly pale, ringed with red.

\--

The racket at the door can only mean one thing; Sera has returned from the Western Expanse. Daylen unlocks the Undercroft to let the noisy little elf in. She talks a mile a minute with her animated face and even more exuberant hands. The pack at her hip crashes against her body as she flutters around the room. 

“So I got all tha bits and bobs you wanted. That crazy dragon guy was all ‘bout helping me find crazy dragon parts. So. Crazy. Dragon.”

“Yes, thank you, Sera.”

“What’s all this stuff fer anyway?” she hunches over in front of his workbench, eyeing substances already in their vials. “I mean, ‘ah know it’s because Lady Trevelyan is sick. And you’re sick too. And that Anders fella too? Is he sick?”

“Um,” Sera has never taken such an interest in his work before. But this could be good. She has been exposed to red lyrium as well with her travels for the Inquisition. While she did not walk in the Fade, she does offer another set of options. A combination of magics that differs from most of Thedas while still differing from the others of the Inquisitor’s inner circle. “Sera, have you ever tried to cast magic?”

Her face scrunches up, a little patch of skin between her eyebrows folding. “Nah, I’m no mage. I’m not one of those elves.”

“I meant recently, since you began work with the Inquisition, do you feel differently?”

“Course I feel different!” She throws up her arms. “Ah got people who like me now. Like the real me. Not a whole bunch, but Lady Trevelyan and Lace and Dorian won’t say so but he likes me a whole bunch, you can tell. Well, maybe not you because you spend all your time in this hidey-hole.”

“This is where my work is. As you said, I am ill.”

Sera shrugs her shoulders, “But why are you ill?”

Daylen sighs, puts his hand to his forehead. “A favor for a favor?”

Sneering, Sera takes a step back. “Depends on wot.”

“I need you to try and cast magic. And then I’ll tell you why I’m ill.”

Hesitating, he sees her delicate hand reach for her waist. Like most rogues, she must carry knives there. The gesture is defensive for certain. 

“Ah told you. I’m not like those other elves. Ah don’t have any magics.”

Daylen sighs, trying another argument. “Inquisitor Trevelyan was not a mage, and you know she can produce sparks now, yes?”

“Ya, but she’s got the Anchor, she’s all messed up. I love her, but she’s messed.” Sera says it with such glee.

“But yes, you’ve been around her, around red lyrium, and around the rifts. Could you please just try for me?”

In an exaggerated display Sera waves around her hands in erratic movements before yelling, “BAM!” and dropping a pinch of powder. She disappears in a cloud of smoke. The clang of the heavy door closing behind her is unmistakable. At least she has left behind her bag filled with “dragon bits” that he needs.

Sera is still his best hope of acquiring a sample of some use for comparison. Well, her or The Iron Bull. He makes Daylen quake in his boots a little. Never saying a word to him, just his presence is imposing. Besides that, he’s never worked with Qunari samples before. Only humans, dwarves, and elves. 

With Cassandra’s election, she is off the table. There are to be no new rumours circulating around the Divine-elect. Even so, her Seeker abilities are something he wishes he had more time to study. Like a bridge between magic and things-called-not-magic.

Resigning himself to work with what little he has, he pulls out the scales Sera has collected and begins the tedious process of scraping them away from the leathery hide. Like everything else he’ll find a way to dismantle them.

\--

Alistair--

I will not send this letter. But in any case, I must write. I must write something or I will certainly go mad. It has been three days since I last slept. I want only to dream of you. But my mind won’t let me. When I am with the Maker, I only hope that I do not forget you.

When you are ready: I want to kiss at your lips and your strong shoulders, all along your chest. You have shielded me all these years. I want to touch you everywhere and be touched in return. I want you to whisper the sweetest profanities in my ear as we lay together. The sound of your voice has always comforted me. These are things I have wanted for very long. To feel you inside of me. Maker, maybe I should not even write this. But I think of it all the time. Your arms around me. Your body against mine. I know you worry that you will not know how to move, to make love, but you already do. You do because we are meant for one another. I have always felt as much. We will learn.

Most of all I want your hand in mine. I want to lead us away from this darkness so we need not always be martyrs. I don’t know if any of these things are possible, but I want them so. I want you so.

I need you.

Daylen


	7. A Drop in the Bucket Really Considering All That He has Done and Will Continue to Do

Climbing down from her horse, Sabina takes the time to stretch her knotted shoulders before fishing for a sugar cube out of the closed sack. She holds it in the palm of her hand and lets her horse lick at it contently as she strokes its sturdy neck. The happy noises it makes reminds her of home, of riding lessons she began quite young. Of helping Cassia up onto her first tame little mare before they were separated. 

The others have already gone, leaving the care of their mounts in the hands of Dennet’s capable men. But Sabina likes such quiet moments between her and the horses she rides.

With her horse properly stabled, she looks for her husband next. Cullen was not there to greet the returning party, but that is not so very odd. They do, after all, have responsibilities beyond doting on each other. 

She climbs the stairs to his office first, it is closest to the barn. Some of them she takes two at a time, her boots barely touching the stone before launching upwards. The sun is only now beginning to set over the mountains. 

Expecting to find him hunched over stacks of parchment, ink on his hands, she devises ways to tease and torment him as she ascends the stairs. How she will stroke just behind his ear. Touch at the curl that sometimes falls just over his forehead. She wants to wind him up, whisper in his ear what she has done, that he should take her to bed. He should take her to bed and fill her with that child with light eyes and dark curly hair she sees in her dreams.

Inside Cullen’s office only Captain Harding sits, three books spread open like fans before her. One pen is tucked at her ear, another in her hand. The inks are of two different colors.

“Inquisitor,” she greets.

“No need to get up, I’m just looking for the Commander.” She waves Harding off before she bothers to move on her account.

Harding tilts her head to one side, “Didn’t he tell you?”

“What?”

“Well, I suppose he didn’t tell me all of it either. Initially he said he was heading to Haven, but that was weeks ago. He left right after you did. Some sort of errand. He took Warden Anders with him.”

No, Cullen had said nothing of the sort. Before she left he only said that he loves her, that she should keep safe, that his love does not come with conditions. “Thank you, Captain.”

She does not miss the way Harding beams a little at the title. 

\--

The door to the Undercroft is locked and she carries no keys to it. Not once has it occurred to her that she would end up locked out of a room in Skyhold. Doors simply open for her. If there is no answer, she will try for Warden Amell in his quarters next. Perhaps she should carry keys. It would not be proper for the Inquisitor to be picking locks in her own keep. She could do it, though. It would be nice to practice.

But the door swings open, an exhausted looking Hero on the other side. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all manner of odd angles. Eyelids droop from lack of sleep. She knows how much lyrium he burns through in a given week. The requisition orders she signs herself before passing on directly to Leliana for procurement. Of all the addicts in their ranks, he is by far the worst. By the same token, he is perhaps the most deserving as well. 

“Where is Cullen?” She tries not to sound desperate, but in a way she is. There are so many things she is prepared to say to him, but now he is not even at Skyhold. 

“Oh, well, there were things I needed.” He steps aside to let her pass. 

Breezing into the Undercroft she gets a fair look at Amell’s experiments. Dagna has been more or less permanently relocated closer to the blacksmiths where she can use the forges herself when she finds their skill to be lacking. With her studies moved above ground, Amell’s have slowly spread to inhabit the space she has vacated.

Vials and jugs cover the tables. The floor is littered with torn parchment and scraps of other, unidentifiable things. Having now seen both what Alistair is reduced to when living in a cave and what Amell curates when given the nicest of caves Skyhold has to offer, Sabina is not surprised they are great friends.

Amell runs his fingers through his hair though it does little to change its condition. All frayed at the edges, seeing him like this worries her a great deal. She needs him coherent, able to work. Otherwise he is useless to her.

“I assigned you Sera to find the things you need.”

He nods immediately, “Yes, of course. But I needed a great many things, from different directions. And one of the things I needed, Sera could have never procured. I should have gone myself but, but I am too weak now.”

The inside of his mouth is stained blue.

“I see.” Her anger softens a bit. She did not provide him with enough resources. He is dying and Sera could not reach all the places he needs fast enough. “Where is he now?”

“Probably on his way back from Denerim? I think it’s been enough time that they should be on their way back by now.” He takes a seat in front of one of the congested desks. His hand tremble and he keeps them away from the elixirs because of it. 

“What did you need from Denerim?”

His fingers lace together to steady his hands. Now he won’t even look at her. His body is nothing more than a shell now, that much is clear. He does not look much different now than when he arrived at Skyhold months ago, swallowed up by Warden Alistair’s too-broad coat, but the change is clear enough in the way he moves. Like this he is coming apart.

“I need blood from someone. Alistair’s sister. Now I just need Alistair.”

“And what if he does not return?”

“He will.”

Of that he sounds more sure than anything else he has said thus far. 

“You’d be surprised, Sera is good at getting blood out of nobles,” she offers.

Laughing as if he gets the joke, Amell slouches in his chair. “I asked her to try and cast, she refused me.”

“Of course she did.” There is no reason to believe that whatever has infected her, possibly Cullen as well, has passed on to Sera. Unless those silly rumors about her and Sera being lovers are still circulating. Fuck she thought that was long over with. “She doesn’t like magic. She has been taught her entire life to fear it.”

“Yes, she told me several times she is not one of ‘those elves.’”

“Right, she likes shoes.” That joke Amell does not get.

“Can you show me?” This time he does meet her eyes with his. Everyone says they look like Marian Hawke’s. Maybe they do, she tries not to remember. When she does, it is only the crunch of flesh and bone as the Nightmare descended on the Champion of Kirkwall that renders vividly in her mind. The sharp slice of the blades Hawke stole from her to slash the demon open. That and the piercing wail that preceded it. The voice from beyond the Veil. 

“Show you what?”

“Your magic.”

“Oh,” she hasn’t cast since Dorian’s rather abrupt scolding in the Hissing Wastes. Not because of his intervention, but there hasn’t been an occasion. Later in the week she may try to practice again with Bethany. 

Holding up her un-Anchored hand, she flexes her fingers out. The pinky catches a bit from an old injury, just a bit stiff, but it moves all the same. Her mind will never quite be clear, but it is ready. Storms between her ears, bright lights too. A false candle, if only they could bottle it, make use of it. She’s an Artificer through and through, taking things apart before putting them back together. Making and unmaking the world. Control. 

The sparks come, her little bit of lightning. It’s not much, just a glow at her fingertips at first. The bolt comes after. Both feeble and beautiful, her heart races when she sees it extend. The reality of making magic is much more than her childhood dreams could comprehend. She wants more of it. She wants it all the time, to flow like water from her veins. It won’t yet. For now they are little tricks for show. But one day.

They leave her fingers and hit the floor, searching for a viable target. Before they can latch on to Amell, he throws up a barrier to protect himself. Harmlessly the spell bounces away, fading out before it can harm anything at all. 

“So strange,” Amell whispers.

“Why?”

He tilts his head to one side, “The first time you said it was violent, almost painful.”

She nods.

“But that was strangely comforting, the way it tried to wrap around me. Odd.”

Dropping her hand finally, she considers what that means. “I’m controlling it better? Bethany is a good teacher.”

“Hmm,” he looks away, just short of outright dismissing her. “I suppose she may be.”

For quite awhile they wait in silence. Sabina should return to her empty chambers. Cullen may not be at Skyhold but that does not mean she should aimlessly wander about the entire night like a lost hound. Tomorrow she will have to plan the Inquisition's next steps. Tomorrow the Mothers will be here to cart Cassandra away, as if she belongs to them now. It is only with resignation that she admits that she does.

She is still rooted to the spot, thinking on the world changing around her.

“I need another subject,” Amell rarely asks for things directly. Except for lyrium, but that is a requirement. Even as they speak, he rolls a full flask between his hands. That calms him like little else, just being near it. “Someone who has been near rifts. Near the red lyrium too. Human or elf. I have to know if the others are changing like you and Cullen are, developing skills they should not have. There are just so many variables. Cassandra?”

Shaking her head, she indicates that is off the table. “She leaves the Inquisition tomorrow as the Divine-elect. Even if we could hold off the Mothers, it would be a political scandal if someone could reveal her as a caster.”

Unwilling to force Sera into something she does not want, there are few other options. Most suitable candidates have already left Skyhold. Harding, Varric, and Bull do not meet the racial requirement Amell stipulates. There is one other possibility. 

“What about Thom Rainer?” She offers.

“Who?”

“He masqueraded as Warden Blackwall. Involved in some plot or another to attack one of Celene’s allies years ago. Right now he’s rotting in a cell in Val Royeaux. Before this became known to me, he accompanied me on some missions, led others where I could not be.”

“And he has been near the rifts?”

“Yes, maybe not as much as Cassandra, but the benefit is the Inquisition could take him on as a prisoner. He would be fully at your disposal.” 

Amell considers it for a moment, wringing his hands. “That would work. Is he a mage?”

“No, no,” she waves him off, “a warrior. Which reminds me, I still need to replace Cassandra, since Bull is a nightmare.”

Ignoring her diversion, Amell is full of more questions, “When could he be here?”

“Soon, I can retrieve him myself.” Of his time restrictions, she is now well aware. She can increase his lyrium supply again.

Now, with nothing left to discuss, she turns to leave. It is Amell who stops her departure this time. 

“I will solve this.” The resolution in his voice is solid, as if he were still a whole man instead. But she knows better, she can see. 

Even if he finds a cure his own salvation may not be guaranteed. 

There is probably no response needed for Amell’s statement. He will solve this riddle or he will die. He may solve the riddle and die yet. On such possibilities she cannot dwell. Either way she must move forward with the Inquisition. That is the only certainty. 

Very badly she wants him to succeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please consider leaving kudos/comments if you are enjoying this series. They really mean a lot to me and serve to keep my motivation up.


	8. The World is at Once too Large and too Small for the Ambitions of Tyrants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains art

“I do not blame you.”

Anders does not respond. Not at first. 

They can nearly see the gates of Skyhold now, another twenty minutes they will be there. The time that elapsed since their departure seems both too much and too little. Only Cullen knows he feels stronger now, even as the lyrium still chases him. Calls to him at night and dawn to regulate his behavior, quiet his dreams and waking hours both. At least when he breathes he does not feel as if he is being torn apart.

“What do you not blame me for, Cullen?” The use of his name, instead of his title, has become more consistent over the weeks they have spent traveling together. 

“That first night you came to Skyhold, that you came here at all. That you wished to burn us all to ash. I do not blame you. In your place, I cannot say I would have reacted differently.”

Anders’ mouth sets in a scowl. Even now their friendship seems transient. “Do not pretend to know how I feel.”

“I do not, I can only imagine,” he offers.

“In all honesty, I should have done more. I should have allowed Justice to take you all in flames that night. But that would have been futile. I would still ache like this for her. Once, I promised to drown the world in blood if it would mean she and I could be together. In this aspect I have failed her.”

Now they both keep their eyes ahead. To do anything else seems too raw, too personal. Perhaps they have already crossed that threshold. But Cullen feels as if he must say something before they reach the gates, as if the spell of their journey will be broken on the other side.

“You loved her. She knew it.”

“It was not enough.”

There are only yards left to cover. In a way, Cullen wishes it were more. “I will ask Sabina on your behalf.”

“Thank you.” 

As they enter Skyhold Cullen catches a glimpse of Sabina tending to her horse. It is already saddled; she wears her riding kit; she means to leave. Their paths crossing but not quite meeting. It’s an infuriating thought. 

When she sees him she smiles, rubs the neck of her mount. Technically, he should lead Anders back to his quarters or to the Undercroft, he is nominally still a prisoner of the Inquisition. Yet he excuses himself as if he is a free man, only saying that Daylen will be waiting for the materials they collected. He has been waiting long enough already.

Sabina’s lips part just slightly but no words pass between them. This is public space, not quite in full view, but close. But he cannot help himself, placing his hands on either side of her face and bringing their lips together. Her perfume lingers in the scent of her hair, sweet but slightly sharp. One of his hands leaves her cheek to hold the back of her head. Even to hold her like this again is lovely. 

Her hands rest on his chest at first before pushing him just slightly away. “You’ve been gone.”

“Yes,” he doesn’t know if he should apologize. 

“I’m leaving.”

“To where?” he asks.

Rolling her eyes she replies, “Haven. I heard it’s popular.”

With that he knows he’s caught. He should apologize for not being forthright with her before she left for the Hissing Wastes. 

“Sabina,” he starts.

With a flick of her wrist she waves him off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to Val Royeaux. Potentially to retrieve Thom Rainer so Warden Amell can have another subject for his experiments. I fear his time is running out.”

Cullen nods, considers the possibilities of what this would mean. Another potentially long separation. “I will come with you.”

That gives her pause. “You have only just returned.”

He wrings his hands. This would also mean delaying his recovery. It would not be suitable for him to begin with lyrium withdrawal symptoms in the capital. The other option would be not seeing his wife for another two weeks at minimum. What he said is true, Thedas will not stop for them. 

“It does not matter. I am fit enough for travel. And I trust Harding well enough to continue in my stead.”

She nods before turning her attention back to her horse. “You should see Leliana before we depart, she has something for you.” Lyrium is the something she does not name. 

\--

Orlais, at its basic organizing principle, is too ostentatious for his tastes. Filled with gold gilt, bright feathers, and needlessly ornate trinkets, he hates the room they have rented in the capital. The only redeeming feature in the whole lot is Sabina standing at its center, deft hands unlatching the clasps to her riding kit. 

“I’ve already called for water.” She pulls away the layers of leather and cloth bit by bit, revealing her scarred skin. Even before the slash across her stomach she was riddled with them. Now she moves with such grace he has difficulty thinking of a time when her steps would have been wrong. A battle where she could have been cut so deeply.

She must know what she does to him, nearly nude before him, stretching her back and shoulders with outstretched arms. How her muscles move underneath the layer of skin that conceals them. 

Cullen steps behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her to his chest. Hands travel higher until he cups her breasts, fingers stroking over taut nipples. Everywhere he touches is a bit cool. He has always been the warmer of the two. 

Fire is not something he wishes to dwell on. Not now.

Canting her head to one side, it rests against his shoulder, dark curls sliding along his skin. “We should wait for the water.”

“Make them wait for us,” he growls. If he cannot have her now he feels as if he may lose control. It has been far too long, the weeks between them.

But it is already too late, there is a knock at the door. Sabina is not decent, so she dips out of sight using a pinch of powder. Though he can no longer see her, he suspects she is smiling at her cleverness.

The servant keeps his eyes straight ahead as he carries the water to the bath chamber. Says nothing, reveals nothing. Cullen remembers this is Orlais. His and Sabina’s modesty is perhaps a touch quaint in such places. That strikes him as quite funny, Sabina as modest. 

With the door firmly closed, Sabina materializes at his side. Cullen thinks he knew she was there, so close as to be able to strike, but he is not so sure. Her deception in such matters still surprises him. 

But he wishes to be a bit of a surprise as well. 

Slamming her against the wall, he pushes trousers down off her hips, trapping her thighs between the fabric. For certain she is smiling now. Her dark eyes never look bright, their own sort of concealment, but they do not waver. 

“Is there something you want of me?” She asks between his attack at her lips.

His fingers already slide along her exposed sex, dipping and stroking where he can. Like this she cannot spread her legs very wide, just barely enough for him to slide a finger inside her. Pushing and curling, he waits for her to gasp before stroking with copycat motions inside her.

"I want to have you."

"Say it," she taunts. "Say it like you mean it. What you wish to do to me, Lord Trevelyan?" The name does not bother him so much from her lips. Well, perhaps the title does, but not the rest of it. Not the part that binds them together. Her hands grip into his arms. Even through the fabric he can feel the bite of her nails. 

He's blushing, he can feel that much. And he can't hold her eyes, but he will try to at least speak. Pressing his face against her neck he begins, "I want to bury my cock inside you. I want to fuck you until you come, until I come inside you. I want to make you thrash and moan and whine for me."

Her hand grips at the back of his neck, the other coming around his shoulder as well. His fingers work inside her until she tenses over and over again around him, it's not quite enough. When she starts thrusting forward, little by little with her hips, he knows he has her. The rise and fall of her breasts against his chest as she draws harsh breaths, so sweet. 

"Cullen," her voice dips low. "Then take me."

No sooner does he slide his finger out of her is she gone. Twirling out from against the wall so she is free. She wishes to be pursued, caught. He wishes to catch her. This time she does not use stealth, hastily pulling up her slacks so she can better maneuver. As far as he's concerned, it's a step in the wrong direction.

He steps forward and she moves to the side. There is only air in his hands. If she doesn't want to be caught, there is little he can do. But she does, he knows she wants to be caught. They dance like this, the air between them bending at her will. When she tires of the game he holds her around her waist, pushing her backwards into the bed that suits neither of their tastes. Too soft, too pretty.

Her trousers slide easily enough from her hips. She lifts them just enough that he can work the fabric down. With her bare before him, she looks a particularly beautiful gift. He must still strip away his clothes but the urge to touch her just everywhere consumes him. The way she splays her legs open, her folds parting slightly, does not help. Does not help at all.

By the time he’s done fussing with entirely too many straps and ties her fingers are already between her legs, rubbing over her swollen clit as she waits for him.

“You couldn’t wait?” He climbs atop her, pressing his length against her abdomen but not yet moving to penetrate her. 

“Not with that view.” She bites the very tip of her own tongue. 

“You’re impossible.”

With her hair loose he grabs hold of it, enjoying the way it tangles around his fingers. 

“Cullen, I should tell you-” Her hips roll up and he nearly loses patience right there. The press of her sex against him as she shifts below. 

But he doesn’t wait. She teases him well enough, often enough. And for certain he relishes in it. The delays and sidetracking heightening his arousal. She is so skilled at winding him up, pulling him apart too. And it’s such a pleasure that he wants to give that in return. 

He slides into her easily enough, pushes her quickly so she’ll gasp at the end of the first stroke. Maker, she is moving beneath him with just sweet frictions. 

“You are mine,” he growls at her ear. This possessive knot overtaking him. “You belong to me, Sabina.”

Her long legs wrap around his torso pulling him into her with each thrust he makes. Hands tangle in his hair while he tries to remain focused. But it is so blissfully difficult as she pants “Yes, yes, yours, yours.” She pulls so hard at his scalp he nearly forgets to breathe. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck,” her mouth never ceases. 

The bed below them is heavy, but creaks nonetheless. Their skin slaps together but her voice is louder. Crescendoing over everything else. Ringing in his ears as he tries fruitlessly to dominate her. She won’t be settled, controlled, not like this. And he loves her for it. 

From the way her body tenses he can tell she is close. The pitch of her voice as well, less musical, more desperate. Her eyes stay open as she comes, her legs thrashing with the intensity of it. Those vibrations from her body bring him perilously close. But hr\e doesn't want to come yet. He wants to take her apart again and again.

He can't hold back for all his desire. She's so wet and taut, full lips parted and eyes still wide open. "Sabina," he struggles with the name. It is not enough. He doesn't have the words enough for how he loves her. It isn't something he can articulate. Only he may try and demonstrate. But it's not enough.

His cum smears against her thighs as he pulls out of her. Her legs close. Part of him wants very much to lick her, bring her off again, taste their mixture. He might yet in a few minutes. For now he wishes to hold her as well.

She curls against his chest, nails running against scars and divots that will never look quite the same. 

"You didn't let me finish what I was going to say."

"No?" He realizes his error. "What is it, darling?

"I stopped taking herbs in the Hissing Wastes, almost five weeks ago now." Her lips are pressed together, as if she is unsure of his reaction.

"Maker." Grabbing her by the hips, he rolls her atop him. "I will keep you in this bed as long as it takes."

She starts laughing, hair falling over her shoulders. It has not been cut in a long time now.

This is an impossibility. Tomorrow they will see to the business of Rainer as planned. 

"You will be naked and full of me until we are sure." He's not hard, not so soon after, but he wants very much to be consumed by her, feel her everywhere against him.

"We'll drive each other crazy like that." She shifts her weight so she is more comfortable atop him, but does not climb off. Instead she presses her palms to his chest, leans forward just slightly, still out of reach of his lips. "We barely see each other as it is, probably why we still like each other."

"Like?" He asks incredulously.

Sabina shrugs her shoulders, "yes, you're alright."

"Just alright," he smiles. 

\--

Sabina's hands graze over his shoulders as he administers his evening dose. Her arms wrap around him from behind, encircling his waist as he depresses the needle. Kisses against his back that blur ever so slightly at the immediate impact of the lyrium on his senses. Dull, then sharper. 

The press of her breasts against his back is particularly vivid.

With the process complete, he hides the kit away where prying servant eyes will not find it while they are away. 

She kisses up and down the length of his arms. Whispers things he can't believe to be true. Not like this. Everything will be fine, she says. He's stronger than she gives him credit for, she says. 

Taking his wrists between her hands, she guides them above his head. Even after she releases them, he does not move. 

He's strong, he's only here because he protected her when she needed him, she says.

That can't be true.

Art by DrennTrev on Tumblr

\--

Rainer has been a prisoner for months now. Well before the battle with Coryphaeus. Bureaucracy interfering means he has not yet hanged, only rotted in his cell while the appropriate papers are filed. Orlesians love murders as part of the Game, but an actual criminal they do not know what to do with.

Sabina scuffs the floor with her boots as she paces. In clipped phrases she explains that she plans on carting him back to Skyhold. There will be a trial, at least for show. But from the moment she takes him from this cell, he belongs to the Inquisition. 

The prisoner hangs his head, not responding at first. He looks much as Cullen remembers him. Even out of his stolen uniform, sitting on the hard floor of a cell, he carries himself as a leader of men. No one may take that away from him. Cullen wonders such circumstance could have befallen him, had things been different.

"I have a mage who needs an experimental nug. And you're it, Rainer," her tone makes it clear there are to be no questions. Rainer doesn't seem to know any better.

"Why? Why come for me now?"

"Because you've been worthless to me for a long time. Now you have value."

Cullen walks beside her as she ascends the stairs. They must still complete transfer of Rainer into the Inquisition's holdings.


	9. Sometimes the Overtly Long Titles are Just to Hide the Ongoing Fear of Inadequacy

Alistair wants to take the stairs down to the Undercroft two at a time. He wants to burst through the heavy door and tackle Daylen to the ground, hold him, make sure all of this is yet real. But he doesn't. Instead he walks cautiously, careful to not make a noise. It is an act of self preservation. There is no guarantee that Daylen will be on the other side of the door.

The door is locked, something he did not expect. It's still mid-afternoon and Daylen isn't the type to shirk responsibility. Not the type at all. Alistair knocks, he waits.

"Coming!" The sound of Daylen's voice reverberating on the other side makes Alistair's heart drop into his stomach. 

They have been separated for months. Over the last ten years they have spent much longer intervals apart than this, but that does not change the fact Alistair's palms sweat.

Swinging open the door, Daylen looks so much like home it nearly breaks Alistair just then. Yes, there are deep purple circles around his eyes, and his hair is far too long as it falls around his ears, down the back of his neck, and he can see the bluish stain on his teeth as his mouth falls open. But none of that, not one bit of it, changes the fact Alistair is home.

"Alistair," Daylen sounds out of breath.

They hug, because that is comfortable, instinctual really. Alistair buries his face at Daylen's neck for a moment. He always smells like sparks, through Alistair couldn't say what that smell is other than Daylen, so it's a bit of circular logic.

"Hey, Daylen," the right words won't come. He's rubbish with words. At least those needed at times like this, ones where jokes won't do. Sorry friend, that the Inquisitor sent me on a wild goose chase to the Anderfels where I was thrown into a cell for weeks while they yelled at each other then your dashing hero finally escaped when they forgot I was a prisoner at all! That just won't do. "Have you been sleeping?"

Daylen pulls back a touch, catching Alistair's eyes before smiling. "Yes, a little. It is difficult."

With his mouth dry, Alistair feels he should be offering more. Leaning forward again, he pecks his lips against Daylen's. That seems to be the invitation the mage needs before pushing into Alistair, pressing their bodies together. Daylen's arms wrap around his shoulders and, Maker, his lips are moving so fast. Alistair doesn't really know if he can keep up, or where to put his hands, or if he should be doing something else. He just doesn't want to be so awkward at this.

Alistair puts his hands around Daylen's waist, but is that even where they should go? Presumably Daylen knows what he's doing, he's done more....stuff than Alistair has. It's not like Alistair hasn't had opportunity, but he also hasn't felt such a desire. Sometimes, he thinks the Ritual may have wrecked him. And Daylen deserves better than broken.

The clearing of a throat jars them both, Alistair from his thoughts and Daylen with his grabby hands.

"Don't mind me or anything," Anders plays with something small in his right hand.

Daylen looks somewhat embarrassed, tucking his head low against Alistair's chest plate.

He whispers, “I missed you so much, Alistair.”

Pressing a kiss to the crown of Daylen’s head it easy enough. It’s a gesture he’s done a bunch of times before. Well before Daylen expected anything more of him. “I missed you too.”

\--

Alistair would say that Daylen looks dead on his feet, but he doesn’t want to think of Daylen and death in the same sentence. But for certain he’s worn ragged with shaking hands. When he drops one of his glass flasks, a pearlescent fluid spreading out across the table, even Daylen admits defeat for the time being.

“I should,” Daylen bites his bottom lip but doesn’t say anything more.

Alistair walks behind him, rubbing against his back with one hand for comfort. “Maybe you should eat something?”

“Tried,” he rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Didn’t work.”

“Maybe a bath?” If Alistair cannot provide some measure of comfort, he will find something, anything that might. 

“Yes, I...alright. But you won’t leave again, will you?”

“Even if the Inquisitor threatens my head on a pike if I don’t leave for Par Vollen straight away or some nonsense like that.”

“Come with me?” And Maker, Daylen sounds so wistful that Alistair almost consents. But not yet, he’s not ready. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready.

“Do not worry, I will be right here," Alistair insists. Even if he were not uncomfortable, Daylen should take a moment to himself.

Giving Alistair a soft smile, Daylen departs, his feet drag. The hem of his robes are caked in dust and soot from his experiments that first collected on the floor, then chose to cling to him. Alistair understands, he wants to cling as well.

Anders remains with his feet propped up on the spare desk, stones in his hands. There isn’t really much for the two men to discuss. They knew each other, of course. Before Anders abandoned the Wardens. But that feels as if it were a very long time ago. They met again, years later, as Anders stood by Marian Hawke's side and Kirkwall burned. It would burn again, and again. Until nothing else was left for that haughty Prince to invade.

"You look troubled," Anders starts. "Are you not glad to have returned?"

Alistair is jarred from his thoughts. "Oh, yes, very glad."

"Daylen has been desperate for your return. When he speaks of anything other than his work, it is always of you." 

It is not that Alistair doubts Anders assessment. If anything, he is concerned by its truth.

"Thank you, for being his friend, I'm sure he appreciates it," Alistair wrings his hands

When Anders scoffs, Alistair looks away. It's like the mage knows what's going on inside him, the churning that will not cease. Alistair does not know if it ever will.

"He loves you so much, Alistair. He will love you even if you do not feel the same."

"But I do!" It comes out unintentionally. "I mean, I do, I don't doubt that. Of course I love him. Look at him...It's just," Alistair isn't sure Anders is the person with whom to discuss this particular topic. Maker, he still feels like he should be walking on eggshells when it comes to Marian Hawke. He knows better than anyone, save the Inquisitor, what happened that day.

"If you don't like men, you should tell him that too."

Anders makes it all sound so easy.

"I want to be a better man. Daylen deserves more than me. I don't know what I'm doing." He rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to think clearly.

"Daylen only wants to feel loved. Wants to feel loved by you most of all. The rest of it will come into place."

"How do you know?" Alistair truly wishes to know. But it's not as if Anders could know something he does not. Alistair and Daylen have been best friends for ten years. No one should know Daylen better than he does. Anything else would be embarrassing. 

"If you do love him, you don't want to know how I know, Alistair. But I agree, Daylen deserves more than anyone in Thedas is capable of giving. But that doesn't mean that is what he wants or expects."

While Daylen looks cleaner upon his return, he does not appear any less haggard. He seems to literally sigh with relief when he spots Alistair still here, still in one piece. Alistair steps towards him, taking Daylen's face between his hands and kissing him softly. Daylen sighs against his lips. He really should get more sleep.

But there isn't time for that now. Daylen goes back to his experiments, says he has a few more things to try tonight. And, for what it's worth, Alistair couldn't have come back to Skyhold at a better time.

Alistair doesn't mind being a practice nug. He's served that role before on Daylen's account. Whatever he needs, Alistair will try and be that.

\--

"So Weisshaupt is sending no one?" Cullen asks. The Inquisitor could not make their meeting and has sent the Commander and Spymaster in her stead. 

Alistair feels like he has explained this a dozen times before, although really he hasn't. Just rehearsed the lines in his head trying to come up with a suitable order. He hasn't actually spoken them in the Inquisition's War Room prior to now. "If I'm perfectly honest, you're lucky you even got me back. They basically forgot about me as they turned on each other."

Leliana's eyes narrow beneath her hood. "I had two agents there. They are both already dead. So this does not surprise me."

She doesn't look like she's aged a day since Denerim. A few harder lines to her face, and her demeanor is different, harsher, but she's still a beauty, that's for sure. Must come in handy in her line of work.

"We could have used those troops. But that is alright. We will make due. I'm more concerned about the vulnerability of Thedas with the Wardens taking up arms against each other."

Alistair shrugs his shoulders. "You've got two here, three if you count Anders."

"Let us just hope there is no Blight on the horizon, after all this," Leliana says tersely. 

"And I plan on putting Rainer through the Joining," Daylen offers.

"Oh," Alistair starts, "that bloke who pretended to be Warden Blackwall?"

"Mmm, yes. I need him corrupted for my experiments. If he wants to pretend to be a Warden, I might as well make him one."

"If there is nothing else," Cullen rises from the table. "I have other matters to attend to. Recruitment is somewhat difficult with no immediate threat visible. And while I do not want the civil conflict among the Wardens to be visible, per-se, I also do not want to be caught unaware."

"Of course, Commander." Daylen lowers his head. 

Alistair has a distinct feeling that he may have failed, although this time there was certainly nothing he could do to prompt a different outcome. The Wardens are in shambles.

\--

It is well spring, so the fire remains unlit in their room. With Alistair's return, Anders has been moved to another space. With his sister-in-law, Cullen said. It makes Alistair itch a bit to think of Daylen sharing a room with Anders. Even though quite a lot of time has passed, and Daylen and Anders both think he has not noticed, he does realize something once happened between them. Maybe it happened again. Maker, if he can't even think it, how is he supposed to do it?

Daylen and Anders were lovers once. Daylen would now, very much, like Alistair to be his lover. That wasn't so hard, was it? Maker, this is going to be the end of him.

Sitting at the edge of his bed, Daylen pulls off his boots first. Wiggles his toes once they are free. He looks to Alistair and smiles. The curve of his lips makes him look younger than thirty. Or is he thirty-one now? Alistair isn't actually sure of the date. Daylen's slender fingers work off his robe, exposing his shoulders, collarbone, chest. All of it is milky, if scarred. He looks soft, touchable. He's always been built sort of wiry, not really with that much muscle. Doesn't need it as a mage.

Alistair's mouth is dry. Daylen is beautiful, there isn't any denying that. Right after they slayed the Archdemon, there were always those starstruck girls nipping at his heels. The Hero of Ferelden. And to think, he didn't want any of that attention, all those years ago, only Alistair's. Makes him sweat just to think about.

"Alistair, are you alright?" Daylen tilts his head to one side.

"Yes, of course, never better," he laughs awkwardly. Shucking his shoes and clothing, Alistair considers his next move. Daylen is waiting for him so sweetly.

Once stripped down, he moves for Daylen's cot instead of his own.

Maker, that smile would kill him too. Daylen keeps it on his face as his back hits the mattress, as he pulls Alistair's body over his own. He's nearly as white as the sheets. With his lips parted just so, Alistair almost feels like he could make this happen. Daylen's blue eyes look crisper now, brighter.

"Maker, Alistair," Daylen whines.

But it's not right. The narrow cot and Daylen's desperate plea. He is not enough for this. It should, somehow, be better. 

Alistair can feel Daylen's length hard against his bare thigh, but in return he feels nothing, awash. Instead, Daylen kisses the very tops of his cheekbones, says Alistair must be tired from the journey to Skyhold. It is good enough to have him here, against him. Alistair rolls off of the mage, onto his side. At least Daylen still curls into him, clings to him because the won't be separated. Even if Alistair knows he's a bit daft.


	10. Lots of Things Might Poke Your Eyes Out Most of All Reverting to Old Bad Habits

Breathe. Just breathe at first. The rest can come later. But careful, careful. If you dive too deep, the process will eat you whole. The demons may take you, speak to you. Have you seen them before, girl? In your dreams, perhaps? Dreamt all along of being of the storm. Now you are. Breathe. Just breathe.

Cast.

Even now, months after its first tremblings, Sabina's magic comes either with great concentration or by mistake. That it comes at all would be enough to throw the continent into chaos. Mages who were not mages before the Breach. It is the kind of information that could topple the stability that the Inquisition fought so desperately to maintain. Even if she and Cullen are somehow different, if the phenomenon is limited to just the two of them, it is unheard of.

It is an open secret among her inner circle that she can cast. They have all seen it in bits and pieces as she tries out new skills in battle. A few have watched her practicing just outside Skyhold's walls with Bethany. Perhaps her magic is somewhat excused by the Anchor. Surely being able to tear open the Veil is more troubling than a few loose sparks. 

Cullen’s fire is a different matter.

Sabina stands beside Bethany and calls forward sparks again. She is trying to hit the stout tree before her. If she stretches, she thinks she may be able to hit it. Thus far she has fallen short half a dozen times. But she believes she is inching closer.

"Hmm," Bethany tilts her head to one side. Her cousin has the same sort of habit. "Maybe we should try something else today."

Stubbornly, Sabina wants to push forward, to produce a stream that would somehow be useful in battle. It's all well and good, what she does with knives and trickery. Fuck, she loves the knives and trickery more than anything else. But this is much the same as when Sera gave her half-failed lessons with the bow. Sabina wants many, many options to fell her enemies, she wants to gather them all up in her arms and dispense them expertly.

Cullen asked her once if she enjoyed killing. Really, if she did not, how could she continue to do this? She'd be mad otherwise. Nearly went mad as it was.

"What do you have in mind, Hawke?"

Bethany presses a pale finger against her lips as she thinks. "I know you're not fond of the little tricks, but they do help your control a great deal."

The tricks are easy enough. To conjure up a little ball of light that she can pass between her hands she must only think of the ringing of bells and a toy her sister had. A little ball made of rubber that looked as if it were filled with stars. The cats would chase it as it rolled away, Cassia chasing the cats down the halls of their home.

Sabina thinks of the ball filled with stars and manages to make the orb in her hands. That it doesn't shock her is surprising, even now. Sometimes she'll still flinch, accustomed as she is to avoiding chained lightning. The orb is in one hand, then she passes it to the other, remaining quite focused on keeping it small, compact. The ball is at its most beautiful when it is perfectly round.

"Alright," Bethany's soft voice intervenes, "now pass it to me."

"Will that work?" When Sabina breaks concentration the orb peters out. "Fuck!"

"Yes, you should be able to pass a bauble like that between two mages. I am not terribly good with storm magic myself, but I know enough that it should transfer."

Already frustrated with herself that she lost the first bolt, Sabina refocuses. Creates the sparks in her right hand, soothes it to the left, transfers it to Bethany. When it comes against Bethany's palm, she gasps, but does not drop it.

Just at the edges it starts to come apart, wind around Bethany's wrist, between her fingers. With a solid shake it dissipates. Now it is nothing at all.

"That was wonderful, Inquisitor."

Sabina nods. She doesn't think it was quite wonderful because she still can't hit a tree at twenty paces. But Bethany appears quite enchanted by the whole thing. So maybe Sabina is just a parlor trick. Maybe it will be more useful at court than in battle.

"Excuse me, Lady Hawke, it is time for my afternoon meetings," Sabina excuses herself.

"Oh, yes, of course!" Bethany walks with her back to Skyhold's gates but there they part.

Her afternoon engagements are really nothing grand, only visiting Cullen. He works, for now, from her chambers rather than his office. For weeks very few have seen him. Herself, Anders, and quite rarely Amell. Reports are dropped outside her door and he pulls them inside as he is able.

The withdrawal has been a difficult one. Uneven, terrifying.

Had it been like this the first time? When she barely noticed him outside the bedroom or at the War Table? Perhaps she had been blind. But now, simply watching him is crippling. 

He is not seated at her desk, nor in the spare chair he sometimes occupies. His labored breathing stings at her ears. Sweat at his brow and hands fisted in the sheets, he faces demons in his dreams of which he never speaks aloud. Only, occasionally, "Neria."

This was not something she wanted, this pain and deterioration. To watch him in his second attempt to break the leash that binds him. She wonders if he could ever actually be free of this. 

In other addictions she has seen this well enough. Struggle, success, relapse, disappointment, spiral. This is not something she wishes for Cullen. But it is his choice to attempt it. It is not her place to dissuade him.

Sabina crawls into bed with him, though she is not tired. She places her arm across his chest even though he is likely to push her away before long. To feel him breathing still is sweet enough to provide some comfort.

His light eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He may not yet register that she is in bed with him. Sometimes it takes time. But his hand comes to rest on her arm, squeezes her gently as he inhales. Shaking the sleep from his eyes, he turns to her, smiles a little, but not enough.

"Sorry, darling. I should work, only, I was so tired."

Sabina kisses at the corner of his eye. "I can have the reports sent to Harding."

Considering it for a moment, he brushes the suggestion away. "No, no I will be fine."

He won't be, at least not today. His veins look deep blue against the pallor of his skin. His illness fights his intent.

Sabina traces her nails along his chest, feeling at the cotton of his shirt. She cannot lie, even like this, she wants him. Perhaps she is sick too, undeterred as she is by his illness. Laying kisses along his jaw, she hopes to stir something inside of him. He was so eager at first to have her, at any moment really. To come inside her as frequently as he could manage, throwing her against virtually any surface, hiking up her layered skirts to her waist in order to take her again and again. Whispering in her ear that she would grow heavy and full, that her breasts would swell and hips widen for their child. 

But that was while he still took his doses.

Now he does not reach for her. But she aches for him, for something. It matters little to her that she has not yet conceived. But she wants his attention. She does not think it is the withdrawal that has suppressed his desire for her. Last time she noticed no difference. Then again, she barely noticed his discomfort at all. Still, the reason he does not want her matters little. She's wound so tightly that she paws at him at every opportunity thinking perhaps he will touch her.

"Let me send the reports to Harding. You are not well."

This time he does not say no. He nods weakly and Sabina crawls out of bed to ring for a servant.

By the time Sabina has laden Nehn's arms with Cullen's reports, he is asleep again. She goes to kiss him goodbye. There are other matters to which she can attend. But when she presses her lips to his forehead, his hand grips her hip.

"Lay with me a moment more?" he asks.

Once she is nestled against him, his hands grip her skirts, pulling them up just slightly. Hurriedly, she reaches for the laces of his trousers, but he shakes his head, pushes her hand away from his flaccid cock.

"I can't. I want to, but I can't." He kisses all over her face like a series of apologies. "Let me care for you."

"You don't have to."

Cullen's fingers dip inside her smalls, slide along her sex, pressing against her clit with increasing pressure. Slow circles, building, building.

"I do," he begins, "you are my wife." He still says that word as if it is something precious, more than a simple contract. "It is my duty to satisfy you." Two of his fingers slide into her at once, keeping his thumb pressed against her clit.

"And what is my obligation to you, Lord Trevelyan?" 

He's already brought her so close to her edge, desperate for his attention as she is. His fingers, slick with her, press deeper. 

"To love me." Such a simple request. Even now it nearly breaks her in two.

"I love you, Cullen."

She comes with the fine work of his calloused hands. Her fingers grip at his shirt as she rides out her orgasm, twitching around his fingers. His other hand tangles in her hair, holding her head against his shoulder.

"Unconditionally?"

In the slight haze of her satisfaction, it takes her a moment to realize he has asked her a question. A seemingly important one.

"Yes."

Sabina is not so sure it is true, but Cullen needs this. She will not be cruel.

\--

The Undercroft is clearly a busy place, cramped as it has become. Anders doesn't do much but pass the time and imbibe strange concoctions that Amell devises. Amell works, rarely coming up for air. Rainer waits obediently in his chair, no other options available to him.

Sabina appraises them each in turn, finds she doesn't particularly care for any of them, Rainer least of all. She cannot believe she was such a fool to have trusted him. She also cannot believe that Leliana kept such lies concealed. They argued over the subject a great deal at the time.

"Look who has decided to grace us with her presence," Anders exclaims. They have been on no better terms than before, though Cullen insists the mage is somewhat changed. "Good evening, Your Worship."

"Anders, if you call me that one more time I will find another charge under which to imprison you." She means it too.

Backing off, Anders returns to his stones. The clicking together must bring him some sort of comfort. It's always the same rhythm. 

"Warden Amell, status report?" 

"Yes, well, I am sure now that the Joining has taken to Thom. He was ill for quite a few days afterwards. Nothing some rest couldn't fix. You know, at my Joining we lost three out of the four recruits." His hands remain busy as he speaks. "Yesterday we tried casting. Nothing seems to work, however. I'm considering administering lyrium."

Sabina nods, glancing at Rainer, still stoic in his seat. "Do you have sufficient materials?"

"Well, there are a few things I would like to try." Amell prepares both a flask and a needle of bright-blue lyrium. "Failing the lyrium dose, I'd like to take Thom to the ruins of the Shrine of the Sacred Ashes. It's the closest location of quasi-stable Red Lyrium deposits. He may need more exposure."

Rainer only grunts.

"Do you disapprove, prisoner?" Sabina does not bother to meet his gaze.

"Not at all, Inquisitor. My desire to aid the Wardens has always be true. I can think of no better service at this time than assisting Warden-Commander Amell."

Amell tisks, "I told you, Thom, I'm not even sure that's my title anymore." With one lyrium tinged hand, Amell brushes his too-long hair out of his blue eyes. "Besides, I prefer Daylen."

"If you betray him, in any manner, Rainer, I will have you hanged." 

Even though it has been months, his betrayal of the Inquisition still feels fresh to her. At the time, she had no space to process what had transpired. Sabina had put her utmost faith in Warden Blackwall. She had trusted Sera and Cole to his protection when she and Cassandra could not be there. Nor has she had time to consider what has become of Solas. Defeating Coryphaeus may have mended the sky, but it did not settle matters on the ground. She is still worn too thin.

"When do you leave, Amell?" she asks.

Amell passes Rainer the lyrium flask first, appraising him as he chokes down the foreign liquid. She can tell why Cullen does not like drinking it from the way Rainer coughs. 

"I had planned on taking Cullen with us, to see if it might jog his magic as well to be in the vicinity."

"I do not think his abilities are important," Sabina bristles. She must be protective of Cullen's privacy. Like Sera, he does not wish to attempt casting, much less succeed. Yes, it may have occurred once, and privately she may wish to see him attempt again, but he has made it quite clear to her that he does not wish these new powers upon himself. Or anyone else for that matter. 

"Still, I would like to wait until he is available. I would be taking Anders as well."

At this point, Sabina cares little for the Abomination as long as he is not lighting fire to Inquisition hay bales. "As you would like."

"Alright!" Amell claps his hands together. "So, Thom, close your eyes, what is the first thing you see beyond the nothingness?"

Sabina does not know if Amell's methods are tested. No, of course they are not. People do not simply become mages at random as adults. At least, they did not before the Breach. Still, as Rainer sits quite still, with his hands on his knees, Sabina almost believe that this will happen.

"It's just more darkness," Rainer replies, obviously frustrated.

Sabina leaves them to their work.

\--

Sera throws apple seeds at Sabina's head as she passes. On instinct, Sabina catches them in her hands. Two little black marks that she can barely see, but she can feel their movement. She and Sera have this in common, understanding the movement of unseen things. 

"You should come up, Lady Trevelyan!" Sera calls.

Not bothering to respond, Sabina does wind through the crowded tavern up to Sera's room. Patrons no longer invite her to drinks, they know better now. Only sometimes Bull does. Sabina doesn't look for him, knowing already he is not here. He and Dorian have been fighting, viciously. It is a matter with which she tries not to concern herself. Bull's decisions are not her business, even if they may consider each other friends.

Sera's room is lightly perfumed, almost cloyingly feminine, with cushions and baubles and color. Even though they are strapped for space at Skyhold, Sabina has not suggested that Sera vacates the little corner room to take up residence with Harding. She knows well enough why Sera stays. This is the first time in Sera's life she has had a physical space that is hers, that she may decorate or dismantle as she pleases. Sabina will not let anyone take that away from her. Is Sera ever wishes to be transferred, she may ask.

"Sera?"

The blonde nearly tackles her to the floor with the force of her hug. Sometimes she is quite affectionate, other days she may not be. Gauging her moods takes a careful eye. Something Sabina has.

Sera holds something small in her hand. Opening it reveals a little metal tin. Sabina gave it to her months ago, before the defeat of Coryphaeus. Filled with beeswax and elfroot oil for Sera to rub on her cracked lips. Filled with something else too.

"Yeah, so a long time ago ah noticed a funny thing in this tin, yeah?" The lid is still snapped shut. "But only just the corner. Ah figured you wanted me to learn patience and all, so ah said, 'wait for all the balm to be done, like a good girl.' So ah did."

While Sabina knows what the message says, she does not know how Sera will react. 

"So an finished it, yeah? Read it too. And ah never showed anyone else, ah promise." Sera bites her bottom lip. "Ah think you should send for your sister. It's kind of safe now, yeah? If she's anything like you, she must be right bored up in tha Marches?"

"It's not that simple," Sabina starts.

"Why not?"

Sabina leans against the wall, pushing Sera's door closed to block out the noise from below as much as to keep their conversation private. The two women are used to speaking in such oblique statements with one another, few would understand the depth of their words from simply overhearing one conversation. 

"I barely know her anymore. It's been almost fifteen years since I've had her close."

"And? If she loves ya at least one-tenth as much now as you loved her then, it'll all be peachy."

Sabina holds her left hand out, flexing her fingers and letting the Anchor glow. When before Sera would have shied away, maybe screamed at her for using things no one understood, now she just narrows her eyes.

"She won't think you're a monster, Sabina. Not if she loves you."

"Love does not make people blind, Sera."

Sera shrugs her shoulders, passing the note back to Sabina. "Seems to have done a number on Lord Trevelyan."

Sabina tears up the note into as fine a confetti as she can manage. If Sera does not want it, she will not hold it either. She lets the remnants flutter to the floor. In such fractions the message the will be undecipherable. The servants may sweep them up later.


	11. Go Ahead, Lie About the Fire, Lie About Everything, it Won't Make You a Better Man

Fade-green light clouds Cullen's eyelids, pushing away anything else that may have lingered. Too often he sees the color when he is awake as well, grafted as it is to his lover’s hand. 

Wife’s. He has to remind himself, still, though he carries her name on paper. Even now he worries it is one of her illusions, another powder from her pocket.

Fade-thick dreams are not unknown to him. He has always assumed them to be normal, if unwanted. Perhaps his are more vile, violent, and disturbing than those that are truly common. But that is to be predicted from the jagged contours of his life. He would say with utmost certainty that he has seen more bloodshed than anyone deserves, but it was his decision to serve. This has always been his path. He wants to be good, but only succeeds in being practical. 

He could have been a farm boy, chasing grown men away from his sister when they came to call on her as she reached adulthood. Wedding the flaxen-haired girl down the road with pink cheeks and even pinker nipples. Tending crops, cultivating life.

But he chose this. To become a templar. He did not choose Uldred's betrayal at Kinloch. It took Cullen a great deal of time to come to terms with the fact he could not stop it either. He chose to transfer to the Gallows, serve by Knight-Commander Meredith’s side. But he did not corrupt her mind, if perhaps he should have been more observant. He chose to lay down the banner of the templars and take up the standard of the Inquisition instead. So yes, Cullen's life is his own. Undoubtedly. 

Time and time again, Cullen selects war. It is not his destiny. It is his choice.

And at the gates of the Fade, fuzzy as they are in his simple dreams, complex nightmares, he knows innocent comforts do not wait for him within.

"Cullen?" Daylen's voice, but not in a way that reaches Cullen's ears, rather it permeates him. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," he replies without moving his lips.

"Even with the Breach closed, the Veil is very thin here. Even before the Breach, this place was sacred, vulnerable," Daylen continues.

"Profane?" Cullen questions.

"Always."

It is profoundly strange, conversing with someone else, who is not his demon, in his dreams. He cannot recall having this experience before. Perhaps it is brought on by the condition of the ruined Temple and the sky-scar. They are not camped far away, only far enough that Daylen assures them that their Red Lyrium contamination will not significantly increase. Anders is far more tainted than Cullen, Daylen not at all.

Anders. He is not here.

"No, Justice will not let him through. Anders has not been here for a long time." Daylen answers a question Cullen has not asked.

"Because of Marian Hawke?" He cannot pretend he knows exactly what occurred in the Fade. Only that Sabina is not the monster Anders would claim her to be. She would not murder the Champion. There must have been no other choice. 

Daylen nods, turning and walking along the floor of the open Fade. False walls shimmer in and out of Cullen's view. As his withdrawal has become more tolerable, his dreams have been less painfully vivid, but they remain. He expects they will continue to be violent. 

"I do not know for certain if she is here. Justice tells Anders that she is gone. They are separate entities more than Anders would like to admit. Like they are pulling apart. It might be the Red Lyrium." Covering his face with his hands, Daylen appears frustrated. "I cannot keep it all straight. Everything changes."

And with those words, the Fade changes as well. Daylen disappears. In his place stands a much more familiar sight. Neria, his demon. Cullen's most embodied haunting.

The demon stands bare before him, offering its flesh in Neria's disguise as it always does. All narrow hips and soft breasts. But he has not been fooled since Kinloch. That was the final time he succumbed, brushing against the demon as he never did the real girl.

"I love you, Cullen." It hisses. So bitter.

His lips stay sealed shut, though it makes little difference in the Fade. Desire can always hear him. Perhaps even when he is awake.

As it walks towards him, its robes reform, twisting around its body in a mockery of modesty. 

"You like me better like this? As the girl you never had rather than a woman you have defiled?" Its small hands press against his chest, but he feels no pressure there.

"You cannot tempt me." His resolve here stands, even as he may otherwise falter.

"Catch me." Its pink tongue darts out from between parted, wet lips. For a moment, it looks like Sabina rather than Neria. Taller, stronger, darker.

The demon dashes away and Cullen's feet carry him in step behind it. He does not intend to chase Desire, but he cannot control himself. Here, Neria will always dictate his comings and goings. She has since her death.

Daylen returns, his blond hair soaked with sweat, clinging to his forehead. His breathing is terribly layered, dark splotches of the corruption patching against his pale skin.

"She knows where Marian is."

Now Cullen does want to catch it, hold it down and rip answers from its throat. But he cannot control the pace of his feet. He may only reach the places the Fade wishes upon him.

The Gallows.

Kinloch Hold. The Gallows of Kirkwall. The Breach. 

His failures.

He and Daylen stand in the courtyard of the Gallows. The corruption reaches Daylen's blue eyes, making one nearly white, the other black.

"Don't worry. It's not real," Daylen reassures. "Something is trying to trick is."

"Neria," Cullen asserts.

Daylen shakes his head. "It's not that simple."

The ground beneath their feet shakes. Even though it is not real, they must try and regain their balance as if it were. Cullen reaches for his sword though it is not there. This is not real, he must remind himself as much. Not real. Not real. No.

From the center of the courtyard, the thick spike of Red Lyrium grows. A violent ringing in his ears as it pierces through the earth, ever upwards. Daylen watches, unmoved.

Across the apex of the spike lays Marian Hawke, the protrusion through her chest, butterflying it open. The lyrium beats in the replacement rhythm of her stopped heart, pulsing where her internal organs do not. Her mouth hangs agape, blue eyes empty.

Daylen steps towards the altar of lyrium, seemingly undeterred by the noise. His long fingers reach for Marian's dead eyes, plucking them out so he can hold them in his hand. 

"They don't match mine," observes Daylen.

But his are changed, one white, one black.

Cullen retches onto the ground. Thick, red-blue blood-lyrium flows from his mouth, tasting like water. More than anything he wants to wake up. If it will continue to be like this, he never wants to sleep again.

The blood pools around his splayed fingers, getting under his nails. He will never be clean. None of his atonement can set him free.

Neria returns, her slim legs in his field of vision. She kicks him viciously in the face and he wakes.

Cullen clutches his face, breathing in deeply, trying to calm himself. Desperately, he paws through his bag looking for lyrium. But he has brought none. Daylen and Anders, though, certainly they would have doses.

But no, he cannot relapse. Not again and certainly not over such a small thing as a common nightmare. He holds himself in the darkness of his tent, waiting for the fear to pass.

Daylen opens the flap, a lit candle in one hand. Saying nothing, he kneels beside Cullen, touching his forehead to check for illness. His voice remains low.

"Are you alright?"

Cullen nods, sitting up slightly and gripping his forehead. "You were in my dream?"

"Yes, yes, we entered the same region of the Fade. Very odd. I have not experienced it quite like that before with a non-mage. But of course, now you are," Daylen catches himself.

Such truths still make Cullen uneasy. A mistake he wishes he could undo.

Daylen frowns. "Do not tell Anders what you saw. Of Marian, I mean. I think that might have been a lie."

"Daylen, what do you mean?"

"Neria said she would show me to Marian, to 'the one with my eyes' if I could enter the Fade as the Inquisitor did."

"Neria is a demon, we both know that."

Daylen shakes his head. "There is more than one Neria in the Fade. When we were seperated, I saw the other. The one I normally encounter. I've never seen that demon before today. But I have seen Neria."

"Daylen, that's not possible."

"Isn't it?" He appears genuinely perplexed. "Maker preserve us, but I really do believe she is trying to help us. That Marian did not have my eyes."

Cullen does not want to speak any longer on Neria, or Not-Neria. He does want to look into Daylen's eyes, confirming that they are still blue, undamaged. They are. That brings some measure of comfort.

"Not yet, I'm not ready yet. But soon, I want to enter the Fade. I think we can bring Marian back." Daylen’s hands are trembling. 

"That may be unwise," Cullen warns. But he has been considering it as well, since Anders request to do the same.

"First I must get closer to the Cure. It is a greater need than finding Marian, but I want to help."

Cullen knows the ache of ambition being greater than one's ability all too well.

\--

Cullen, Anders, and Daylen approach the site of the Breach together. Though it has been months since Coryphaeus’ defeat, the scar in the heavens remains. It matches the one across Sabina's chest, puffy, with the illusion of rawness though it is sealed. A contamination between worlds.

Daylen breaks away, running towards the Temple ruins. He laughs with glee, his robes floating around him. Perplexed, Cullen and Anders dawdle behind.

"It's magnificent!" Daylen cries. "The closer I get, the quieter the Calling." Daylen tips his head to the sky, sun catching in his hair. Like this, Cullen can nearly believe they are young and unmarred by their decisions. But Kinloch was not innocence. Not for them, not for anyone. "I don't know what it means." Daylen laughs, "but I love it."

Cullen tenses. The Hero has never looked more like the Champion in his eyes.

\--

Daylen asks Cullen to cast. He says it is important. He must know, trace the yarn back as far as it will go. But to do so is blindingly painful for Cullen, to admit he is the thing he once both loathed and desired. There is no possible way Daylen could understand. Yes, Daylen, sweet Daylen who Thedas once loved but has already forgotten, is a mage. But he was never also a templar.

"Please," Daylen insists, "I need to understand."

Cullen looks up to the scar. "And if a demon takes me, what then?"

"What is stopping a demon from taking you now?"

Only mages may be possessed. Cullen has known this statement is a lie since Kirkwall. Nonetheless, he repeats it.

"Cullen, you have two Circle-trained mages watching you. It is safe."

He looks first to Daylen, then to Anders. Two Circle-trained, one already possessed, but always calling it by a different name.

A name like Templar "Abilities." Fueled by lyrium, but which no one would dare call magic.

Cullen closes his eyes, thinks back to that moment, his weakness against Coryphaeus. The bottle of lyrium in his hand. Sabina did not tell him to drink, but she placed it in his hand. He could not be angry. Victory at any cost. Cleanse, cleanse. But it only works when he is full, high. Never again. He will not drink again. But the fire at his fingertips. Protect his friend, one of the best he has managed to make, Dorian. Protect the woman he once loved, still loves, in a way, Bethany. Sabina. She does not want his protection, she wants victory.

Sabina who, Maker willing, will carry their child one day soon. Protecting her, protecting the shallow walls around their lives that they have built together, must take priority. No one will fight for such things on their behalf. He must be a better man than he is. And he must do so without lyrium.

And it's there. Cullen can feel it just beneath his skin. Fire licking along his tendons. It terrifies him.

"I-I'm sorry, Daylen. I don't think it's working," Cullen lies. He lets the embers inside him grow dark.

Daylen's face falls. 

Cullen can only hope that the future he selfishly desires is worth the untruths he propagates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are always very very much appreciated. They keep me on-track and working on this story instead of others. Unless, like, you would rather I go work on something else. Then you can totally tell me that too
> 
> Also, I'm on [tumblr](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com/) for more garbage.


	12. Sure She Won't Mind the Delay While You Deal with Your Own Shit

Anders cannot hold her. But he has not given up hope that he will one day. The thought of it, of her, keeps him from burning this place, burning this world, letting it cinder down around his corpse. He does not think so highly of himself that he could overthrow an Inquisition, just like he did not start the Mage Rebellions. But he does know he is capable of making a hell of a lot of noise. A lot of smoke. A lot of ash. 

But he doesn’t, because Sabina Trevelyan, the Abomination she is, carries his only hope on her left hand. It pulses there, a key between worlds. 

Justice tells him Marian is dead. Not even dust left behind. Spirits such as he should be incapable of lying, but Anders cannot believe this to be true. He heard Marian whimper, for him. For him to come to her. He must. For all the times she saved him. Maker, she did not deserve this, to be tossed away like refuse.

Bethany is away with the Inquisitor, tending to some petty trifle in Redcliff. Perhaps in her pride the Inquisitor thinks the remaining Lady Hawke a pretty, well-mannered bargaining chip. So much more docile than Marian. She’ll smile and nod and tilt her pretty head to the side just so.

It does not matter. Anders and Bethany barely speak when she is here, even though they have shared a narrow room since Alistair’s return. 

Anders can see the sadness in Bethany’s eyes when she looks at him. The haunting between them both. She blames him for all this, the fall of the Circles, the chaos that followed, even, perhaps, Marian’s fate. But this was never what he intended. Never. So carefully he worked to shelter Marian from blame, from any involvement at all. It was his burden to carry. And what did she do? Spared his life when he wanted none of her forgiveness. Left the city of Kirkwall in tatters and ran. With him. Whispered in his ear that her only desire was to be his wife. That he was her home.

She was meant to slay him. All of it, he would do all of it again. The only thing he would change is taking Marian's delicate wrist in his hand, dragging her pretty blade against his throat. If she were not cold enough to do so, he would have had to take responsibility. 

His demise would have protected her better than his arms ever could.

Rolling onto his back, Anders first tries to think of nothing. Only the beams that make up the ceiling above him. He counts the knots in the wood, trying to will away the desires that come to him. 

But it is difficult, so difficult, to forget the scent of her skin, her glossy hair, the songs that poured from her open mouth, her flute. Fingers dancing. He cannot forget.

Marian, the thief who fashioned herself into a noble. Pulled a fast one on an entire city. The bloodlines may have been there, but it was her tenacity that dressed her in silks. His beautiful monster.

On the run from Kirkwall, she held his hand, squeezed it so tight his fingers turned blue. Ash tickled their nostrils, sat in her hair like puffy snowflakes. Her hands were trembling, but she did not say she was afraid, only they must keep moving. If they were to stop it would all be over. Marian Hawke who dressed herself in silks, who Anders stripped bare. The light of a city in flames flickering out. Dying embers of a place that could not be home.

Anders touches himself.

Marian, her mouth open, hands tangled in his hair. Her back against a broad tree. Not much time. Bethany will come looking for them if they are away from the others too long. He came so close to losing her, her song dying on Meredith's blade. She spared his life, after everything. She wanted him still.

Her armor coming apart. He knows all the buckles, the laces, the clasps. The way her breasts spilled out of her band. A size too small, she wouldn't admit that they had grown. He knew why, but would not tell her. Kinder, this way.

No scar. Even though she had been sliced through. Her skin as pristine as before. Soft, shivering under his fingertips.

Panting in his ear. "Anders, Anders, Anders." And the raking of her bitten nails down his back. Slamming into her, desperate. Like it would be their last time. 

Perhaps Sebastian would make good on his promise. Hunt them like dogs.

His. She was his. No pretty, misguided Prince was to take him from her. No, Anders did not deserve Marian's love, her open, beautiful presence. But Maker, he would not let that pompous prick have her. 

The lyrium from battle still in his blood, in his mouth, pushing up through his skin. Take her. Claim her.

The sweetness of the way she came around his cock. Her walls clenching as she wailed. Swallow her scream, they could not afford to be found out. Whimpering as if she were weak. Never, not Marian. Head thrown back, the line of her neck. He bit her there. Clawing at each other. Claiming her again and again. A body, a soul, willingly given to him. Nothing that he deserved. Her bow-string calloused fingers against his face. Marian.

Anders comes against his stomach, unsure if he should be ashamed. He has done this before, touching himself to her memory, dozens of times since Marian was taken from him. It does not get easier, the vacillation between relief and regret. 

\--

The Inquisitor returns with her party in tow. Sera, the elf who manages to be both cautious and exuberant, nips at her heels. Her small hands wrap around the Inquisitor’s arm; her feet skip to keep pace with Trevelyan's longer stride. The two do not talk, only walk together. 

Anders intends to return to his book, read a bit more in the open air before being dragged back down to the Undercroft to place himself at Daylen’s disposal. Earlier, he tried to coax Daylen outside, at least for a bit. Anything but those damned experiments that suck him dry. Even Alistair’s return has not settled his nerves. Anders sneaks his lyrium rations into Daylen's mess of bottles when his back is turned.

When the Inquisitor steps past him, Anders freezes. It’s there, if only faintly, the ringing in his ears. After the defeat of Coryphaeus, Trevelyan has gone blissfully silent. She confirmed that the same was true for her. They could no longer hear each other, a discordant song that terrorized them both. A happy miracle that was.

It is not terribly loud. Faint, as if it were very distant. 

It takes Anders a long time to realize that Trevelyan has frozen as well. She hears it too. But nothing has changed since they have last seen each other, has it?

“What did you do?” Anders asks without thinking. He knows the Inquisitor feels no good will towards him. 

“Sera, go. I’ll meet you later.” She waves her hand to send the elf away. 

They wait until Sera is out of earshot. But there are others all around, occupying the niches of the courtyard. 

“Walk with me,” Trevelyan instructs. 

Anders does not wish to follow. For all he knows, she will march him straight off a cliff to protect herself, selfish as she is. But she also has the authority to kill him where he sits. She could slit his throat with one of the long daggers at her back. Her advisors, always at her beck and call, conceal her misjudgements, tell her she is the hope of nations, when really she is very little. A shallow thing.

Anders has no choice but to follow.

Trevelyan leads him to her quarters, locking the door behind them. What does this look like, taking a different man to her chambers? Her boldness goes unremarked upon. 

“Why can I hear you?” She leans against her desk, arms crossed over her chest. 

“I would say it is one of Daylen’s experiments, but he has not used me since you left for Redcliffe. And I can hear you as well,” he admits. He observes her for differences, the way she holds herself, the twitch of her fingers, anything that would give her away.

“Fuck,” she covers her forehead with her hand. “This is shit I don’t need.”

Indeed. It is something Daylen does not need either. The shifting variables will force him to re-calibrate, again. Nothing ever stands still long enough to strike.

“Tell no one.”

Anders pauses, “we must tell Daylen.”

Her eyes close. “It cannot be avoided?”

But then, with something quite unintentional, Anders realizes what has changed. It isn't by design, reaching towards Sabina with magics he did not ask for her. But the noise that passes between them makes maintaining control somewhat more difficult. Like their bodies speak to each other even though they cannot stand each other’s presence. 

She is with child.

Telling Daylen now would mean telling Trevelyan now. But it is so early, still within the weeks where Marian lost one pregnancy, unknown to her. Anders carries that burden of guilt even now. That he could not give Marian one of the things she most desired. 

Trevelyan is not Marian. And Cullen is not a Warden. Nonetheless, Anders worries. He cannot help it.

“Later, then.” Anders knows his sudden change is suspicious. “We will tell him later, if it grows worse.”

Does she already know? Trevelyan’s shoulders relax when Anders suggests they tell Daylen nothing for now. Perhaps she does.

“Yes, later. If it grows worse.”

\--

They do not tell Daylen that they can hear each other, but they do speak to him on possibilities of expulsion. They are two bodies filled with Red Lyrium. How much exactly, they do not know. Daylen believes it to be quite thick in Anders, but it is hard to tell. Somewhat thinner in Trevelyan. There must be a way to extract it, remove it from their bodies. 

What Daylen needs, really needs, is to be able to control for a number of variables. Compare alike things, not different ones. But that would mean fresh bodies, uncontaminated by taint, lyrium, red lyrium, all of it. Impossible. None of them can even pretend such bodies exist. 

"The Red Lyrium did not just appear out of thin air," Trevelyan waves her hands, emphasizing her point. 

Daylen considers her statement. "Anders, you and Marian found it in the Deep Roads, yes? Which means the dwarves knew of it."

"We were in parts of the Deep Roads that no dwarf had been in for hundreds, if not thousands, of years." Anders shakes his head. "I doubt there is anything they would know."

"Maybe no one has asked the right questions." Trevelyan paces.

There is nothing for Anders but to click his stones together in his palm. "I'm sure Varric-" he begins.

"I am sure of nothing with Varric," Trevelyan interrupts. "He did not know the right questions either. Warden Amell, do you believe that we could learn anything of the Red Lyrium from the dwarves?"

Daylen nods curtly. "I can draw up a list of what I need to know. And I have contacts that Varric provided to me before his departure for the Marches."

"Good," Trevelyan's eyes look full of sparks in her excitement. "I will prepare a party. We can depart at the end of the week."

No. She must not go. Anders tries to fashion an acceptable excuse. It is best for her to remain at Skyhold. Not to place herself in unnecessary danger. True, Anders dislikes the Inquisitor. He dislikes her a great deal. But he cannot help but feel protective now. He wants her pregnancy to be successful. He would not wish what he and Marian faced upon anyone. It seems too cruel.

"Perhaps it is best you stay at Skyhold, Trevelyan."

"Since when are you one of my advisors, Warden Anders?" She sneers, "I would think you would want to be as far away from me as possible."

Daylen does not interject. Rather, he begins writing furiously. Color from his hands smear against the parchment as it slides across its width. He will be writing for a long time yet. There is much he does not know. 

"Inquisitor Trevelyan," Daylen's hand stills. "I only ask that you do not take Alistair. I know you have been looking for a defender to replace Seeker Pentaghast. Just, please, not him."

Already halfway out the door, she calls back, "I've already decided. Do not trouble yourself."


	13. Claustrophobia and Other Tatters Mended Together to Keep Warm

"Do not go, darling." Cullen's breath is hot against her ear. His fingers are solid inside her. In the morning she leaves Skyhold for Orzammar. She is, as of yet, unsure how long she will be gone.

Cullen grips her thigh, pulling her legs apart as he works three fingers inside of her. Just like this she feels beautifully full. As his addiction fades, his lust for her returns. His head dips between her legs, lapping at her clit as she plays with his hair. She has come once already, and he seems quite intent on bringing her off again. 

Her abdomen tightens. She lets go of herself while gripping his hair tighter, pulling his face against her sex so that she may grind against him. But she is not done, not quite, when he pulls out of her. Licking his fingers is quite the lewd display. But he is still more a boy caught out than a seasoned seducer. Sabina laughs a little when she sees him.

"What?" It is too dark to really appreciate the flush on his cheeks, but she knows it is there. 

She ruffles the hair at the back of his neck as he presses his body over hers. "You're beautiful, is all." She traces a finger down the bridge of his nose.

His cock slides into her, hitting to the base in a single stroke. She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer while his hips roll into hers. The outside of his thighs rub warmly against the inside of hers. Everything about him burns.

"Fuck, Cullen, yes," she hisses. His pace is slow, deliberate. They will not have this opportunity again for weeks. Sabina rakes her nails down Cullen's back, tracing the patterns of muscle there. She is so achingly full of him that she could come immediately. But she wants to draw it out, as he clearly does as well. "I want to ride you."

Obediently, Cullen holds her hips as he rolls onto his back, keeping himself sheathed inside her. Sabina groans as she is able to take him deeper in this position. Not like the previous one was lacking. "Touch me, Cullen."

But he already is, ghosting his palms over her body. Across her shoulders, down her sternum, between her breasts. His arms wrap around her and he grabs her ass, squeezing it, pulling it apart as she bounces on his cock. Sometimes he can be quite lewd, just never with his words. She must make up the difference.

"Do you have any idea how good your cock feels in me?" With his hands otherwise occupied, she grabs at her own breasts, teasing her nipples until they are hard. "You wrecked me so good, Cullen. I, ah," she gasps as he punctuates up with his hips. "I'm ruined for any cock but yours."

"Sabina," there is the hint of a threat in her name. But he likes it, she knows. Only he can't admit to it, the good Chantry boy that he is. 

"Do you like that, Cullen? That of all my lovers, all the cocks and cunts in the world." She can feel the possessive grip of him, the way his body snarls and twists even as he remains silent. His short nails bite into her flesh. "Yours is the only one I crave. The only one I want."

"Maker..."

"Don't hold back. Just fuck me." She slaps him lightly across the face, not enough to really hurt, just get his attention. And it works. He thrusts up into her, grabbing her waist and slamming her down on his cock. Sabina likes that he is strong enough to do this. She is not small, delicate, but he can toss her about as if she were. 

Slapping him again, harder this time, she comes from his cock inside her, so deep, and the groan the impact rips from his throat, deeper yet. Her back arches sharply, stretching for someplace to go, to escape the sensation of too much. He's chasing her, coming inside her, fingers twitching as he holds on. His grip is so tight it'll leave bruises on her waist. She'll cherish them until they fade.

Breathing heavily, she climbs off of them. Between her legs is slick with his cum and her own desire. She dips two fingers against her sex before bringing them to her lips. Cullen watches her and groans as she sucks the digits. She laughs around them.

"Are you alright?" She moves to settle against his chest. 

"Mmm?" His fingers are already in her hair, pulling at her curls. "Yes, of course, darling," he sounds distracted. 

It isn't her job to coddle him, or force him to speak when he would otherwise remain silent. If it is important enough, he will tell her. She is nearly half asleep by the time he chooses his words.

"Don't go." He presses a kiss to her head. "Stay here, at Skyhold."

"Cullen," she keeps her voice low. In truth, she does not want to leave. But likewise, she cannot stay here. Not when going to Orzammar is their best lead for untangling the web they are caught in. "I must, you know I must."

"There are no rifts there. They do not need you," his voice is firm.

"I don't want this Red Lyrium inside me any longer. Or the taint. And I know you don't either."

Cullen sighs heavily, "No, I do not."

"So I must go."

His arguments cease.

\--

They reach the gates of Orzammar within a week: Sera, Bethany, Dorian, Krem, and herself. 

Before their departure, Bull had insisted she take him instead. First, she pointed out that they were headed to dwarven libraries and ruins, so his horns, if not his shoulders, would get caught on everything. Second, he was still a shit defender. Killing things came easy. Finding someone to keep her mages and rangers from being killed, that was difficult. 

She hops down from her horse, personalized letter from The Hero of Ferelden in her gloved hand. Daylen seems to believe it would help them gain entry.

"Aclassi, walk with me," she commands. 

He falls into step beside her, the rest of the party hanging back.

\--

As soon as the proper tributes are paid to the King, dozens of major houses as well, she and Dorian begin in the libraries, pulling tomes on the practicality of lyrium processing and the intricacies of lore alike. The others run errands, building up goodwill and following some of Varric's more tenuous leads.

Typically they do not speak, rushing through volumes as fast as they can. Even with Warden Amell's blessing, they do not know how long dwarven hospitality will hold. It does not bother her, much. She and Dorian have not seen eye-to-eye for quite some time. Sabina makes no assumption that he has stayed with the Inquisition on her account.

Perhaps this distance between them was inevitable. In many ways, they are too alike. During the early days of the Inquisition, traipsing through the Hinterlands and dancing along the Storm Coast, they were almost friends. Those days are long gone.

Dorian can be free under the Inquisition's protection, within reason. She still feels pitifully caged by her station.

"I did not know you read so voraciously, Sabina."

She rubs the bridge of her nose, shaking away the blurring in her vision.

"What would ever make you think that?" She leafs through the book in front of her.

Dorian flicks his wrist with an exaggerated gesture. It grossly mimics one of her more noticeable tics. "Summarize." 

"Just because I don't have time to read hundreds of pages of reports every day does not mean I'm a poor reader, Dorian."

After that, he leaves her be.

\--

As Varric's leads dry up, Bethany joins them in the libraries. Her hair falls into her face as she becomes absorbed in their work. She pushes it aside, again and again, making no effort to tie it back. Her brows knit together. When she grows older, she may have a noticeable wrinkle there, Sabina nearly forgets they are really not that far apart in age. Bethany just always seems so young.

Krem arrives with several ornately bound books from a private collection. The family are willing to entrust them to the 'charming Lady Hawke,' if they would be of use. Bethany smiles in response, covers her delicate mouth with her hand, and thanks Krem for retrieving them.

Sabina takes one from the stack, starting on the first page and working her way through. Her translation orb glows on the desk in front of her, shifting the words from the old dwarven languages into Trade. Even the dwarves of Orzammar cannot read their own ancient texts without such clever devices.

She wants to take it apart, see how it works. 

\--

The weeks underground progress. Sera, Krem, and Dorian enter the Deep Roads, following a lead found in one of the old texts. She and Bethany remain in the libraries. The lack of sunlight makes Sabina ill. Her stomach churns when it should not. She sleeps more than she should need. 

Bethany brews her tea. She always makes two cups, saying she wished for some as well. Her social graces are impeccable. 

Sabina wishes for more waking hours. Or, perhaps, only to read faster than she already does. She wants to be free of this curse in her blood. She wants to see the sun too. And Cullen.

When she falls asleep at the long stone table, Bethany does not wake her. Only thinking to drape a blanket over her shoulders and let her rest.

\--

Krem’s party has been gone for weeks. Sabina and Bethany read as if nothing is wrong. 

If it comes to it, they must follow. As the fourth week passes, Bethany mentions that she saw a dwarven champion in the marketplace. He was very polite, asked about their progress. Bethany took the liberty of looking into his reputation and it is spotless, other than his conversion some years ago to Andrastianism. That may as well be in their favor. 

Sabina knows what Bethany is suggesting. She has thought of it too and is grateful for Bethany's tact in such matters. This champion could well escort them into the Deep Roads. They cannot wait much longer, something may have gone wrong. They may return with only bones. They may return with even less than that.

How would she explain what transpired to Harding? To Bull?

It has been over ten weeks since her last cycle. She cannot be certain, not without seeing a healer. Part of her does not want to know for certain. Perhaps it is better this way.

Tomorrow she will see to this champion.

She writes to Cullen, apprising him of the situation, that the party is missing and that they must soon set off after them. She conjures words on how she misses him terribly, misses the heat of his body pressed against hers. She misses his half-smile too. The one where he just thinks that he is so clever. 

The pen scratches against the parchment until she is quite certain she has pushed away her anxiety.

\--

The sharp knock at the door rouses her from her sleep. Groaning, Sabina rolls onto her side, throwing one hand over her eyes. Bethany has already woken, wrapping her night robe around her body.

Once the door cracks open, Sabina knows.

"Krem! Oh Krem!" Bethany practically throws herself into his arms, burying her face at his neck. 

Low whispers of, "it's okay, we're alright," as he kisses the side of her head. Bethany's relieved sobs fill the room.

Sabina pulls on her robe as well, takes down and resets her messy ponytail higher on her head. 

"Inquisitor." Krem attempts to maintain decorum though it is clear he is keeping Bethany upright. 

"Aclassi, report." She crosses her arms over her chest.

"Dorian took a number of samples. The dwarves are inspecting them, they'll have to be approved for removal to the Surface. And they want to make copies of the mural etchings we took, but said, barring any sensitive information, they should be returned to us."

Sabina nods. Sera was to conceal any particularly important bits of artifact or information from the dwarves entirely. Best they not speak on such matters now, but she trusts Sera to have followed instructions.

"And the others?"

"Dorian wanted to stay with the artifacts until they cleared customs. We went through all that trouble. Like hell we're going to let the dwarves hold up our stuff in bureaucratic hell.."

Bethany pulls away slightly, Krem loosening his grip across her shoulders. While she moves to support her own weight, she remains quite close to him, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Sera?"

"She's fine, should be along soon," Krem offers nothing more. Sabina can only assume that means she has already made a break for the surface. "Is there anything more we need here, Inquisitor?"

"No, everything has been packed for weeks. We may depart once customs are cleared, if you have no injuries or objections."

"None, Inquisitor."

She grabs her riding kit, pulling it on hastily as she gives orders. "I will meet Dorian at customs. It may take several hours for the artifacts to be cleared for removal. Aclassi, get some sleep if you can. I need you alert. I will send someone to retrieve you once we are ready to depart." Carrying her own pack, she waves them off as she exits the sleeping chamber. 

There is a ringing between her ears, but she suspects it is nothing more than her own joy.


	14. There's No Going Back Now, So You Might As Well Accept Your Relationship Status. And It's Not Complicated.

Very little of interest occurs at Skyhold while Sabina is at Orzammar. Cullen dispatches agents to continue recruitment, focussing on those with specialized knowledge rather than mere bodies to fill suits of armor. 

They need engineers, town planners, hunters with the patience to train the inexperienced. In short, while their military might cannot wane, they must also fashion the tools for rebuilding. The Inquisition Forces have the bodies to labor, but they still need competent minds and hands to guide them. Cullen knows battle, blood and tactics and strategy. He doesn’t know how to mend a bridge so it will last more than a few months. It is imperative he tempts those who he can to join the Inquisition, but he does not think himself particularly charming. The dispatches he sends are drafted by Josephine. He merely signs them.

When he looks up from his stack of reports, Harding is biting the end of her pen, chewing it down with nervous energy. He feels the same, anxiety creeping through his bones. Letters regularly come from Sabina but they speak of painfully little. They feel rather impersonal, may as well be addressed to "Commander."

\--

When the runner comes with the news the Inquisitor has arrived, Harding bolts from the room before Cullen can even finish his sigh of relief. A pit of panic remains, as it often does, that in the intervening weeks, Sabina has changed her mind. That their affair is some sort of cruel joke and she will flit back to the Marches with a wine bottle in one hand and a new lover in the other. There is no rational reason for Cullen to imagine such a scenario. He pushes it down as he descends to the courtyard.

Sera throws her arms around Harding, knocking them both to the soft earth. The mud stains Sera's elbows. She looks blissfully happy, too wrapped up in her partner to care. Their voices race back and forth at alarming speed, Harding always trying to catch up to Sera. Cullen diverts his attention to avoid eavesdropping.

Approaching the stables, Cullen does not call out to her. He waits as she tends to her horse in silence, a ritual he knows not to interrupt. When she is ready, he will be there.

"Can you tell?" she asks, not yet turned around, still stroking her horse’s neck.

Cullen leans against the support beam, crossing his arms over his chest. Even at a distance, he can smell the sweat at her skin. She will want a shower, and soon. Then, they will undoubtedly be pulled from meeting to meeting: Leliana and Josephine, Amell and the other Wardens, countless trivial matters that have been awaiting her attention. Perhaps, if they are lucky, they will have time for dinner together. 

“Tell what, Inquisitor?”

She laughs lightly. “Oh, so we’re back to ‘Inquisitor,’ then?”

Cullen does not move from his position. That would only give her the advantage. By holding, he makes her come to him. But he’s bad, very bad, at waiting. Time enough and he will reach for her, bring her close to hold her. He wants to take down her ponytail, run his fingers in her hair, though the curl has unraveled somewhat. It has been too long since she last washed it. He doesn’t care. 

“I suppose we are,” he tries to be coy.

Sabina turns on the balls of her feet, her horse properly tended to. Her hair is a bit longer too, sweeping well over her shoulders, down her back, even when tied up. She takes a step forward, closing the gap between them, already small when they began. Knowing her angles of approach is one of Sabina’s greatest strengths in combat. He knows her better now than he did even as little a a year ago, how she moves, shifts across the field of battle. She always knows the best route between two points. More than that, she knows the most advantageous route isn’t always the shortest. Undoubtedly, she has calculated even more possibilities than Cullen can visualize, given the narrow space. There are scenarios where he is better: moving multiple units in synchronicity, choking the battlefield to create artificial advantages, the use of siege weapons. None of which will help him now.

Her hands ghost through the mane of his coat as if it is very interesting. Keeping her eyes down, her lips open and close as if she is miming words. There are precious few things that leave Sabina at a loss for words. Almost all of them start and end with their relationship.

“You cannot tell?” Finally her hands still, arms draped over his shoulders. Her dark eyes look up, her face tense. If he knew what words she struggles with, he would put them into his own mouth, render them for her.

“I love you, Sabina. What happened?” And his heart stills. Because it is possible that what causes her strife will strike him down as well. There is no way to know for certain before she just speaks.

Instead, he kisses her. Long and hard and full of all the words that have ever passed between them, even the cruel ones. She may sort through them and pluck out the right ones if they suit her. But Cullen, he wraps his arms around her waist, pulls them together until she is flat against his chest. Her tongue darts out, viciously. This is spiraling out of control as she grinds against his leg. 

Maker, he’d take her now in front of the entire Inquisition if that wasn’t such an awful idea. Such lovely, possessive thoughts seem well and good in his head, but he would never live it down, to act in such a rash manner. Never. Better to coax her to their quarters. Perhaps he could join her in the bath, steal moments for themselves. 

She pulls back first, panting as if kissing him were something strenuous. Perhaps he should not have interrupted her. But she looks so perfect, with her limp hair, soiled kit, dirt under her nails, the lacquer chipped away. 

He can feel how tightly her fists are balled against his back. More than that, he can see the strain in her face. When it comes out, it’s so sudden and all at once it knocks the wind out of him.

“I’m pregnant.”

Involuntarily, his arms tighten around her waist, drawing her more firmly against his chest. At first he says nothing. He doesn't actually believe her words. A thousand terrible scenarios race through his mind, though this is something he wants. Maker, he wants this desperately. Part of him did not believe this day would come. Of course, they have been trying, frequently and with great enthusiasm once he was free of the possession of the lyrium bottle. But he also shielded himself against disappointment, best he could, realizing there were no guarantees. 

"Fuck, Cullen," Sabina buries her face against his shoulder, muffling her words, "say something."

Yes, of course, but what? What is he to say? The knot in his stomach loosens with each breath. Elation replaces the heaviness as it floats away. He is adrift in his happiness. 

"Darling," and he starts laughing. It bubbles up from his abdomen to his vocal cords, spills out over his lips and into her hair. She smells terrible. Cullen laughs because words won't be enough, keeps laughing until Sabina shakes from it as well. Her eyes are never bright, but when he pulls back, her smile is. 

This is happening. They are here, alive, gasping for air to fuel their joy.

"So you are glad?" she finally asks as their laughter peters out.

He fills in the words where she cannot. "Sabina, we are going to to have a child." He takes her arms from around her neck to squeeze her hands with his, fingers laced together. "You are to be a mother." He hears her breath hitch. "I am to be a father. We can do this. Of course I am glad, indescribably so."

"Okay, okay," her breathing is somewhat uneven until she laughs again. "I'm glad too."

\--

They hold council with Leliana and Josephine, moving markers around the Table in seemingly infinite combinations. Sabina waves off suggestions she finds to be unsuitable. She doesn’t want to commit troops to hold the Western Approach any more than she already has. If Griffon Wing Keep, at some time in the future, requires additional troops, she wants treaties with the nearby nobility to ensure bodies on the ground. She wants additional spies in Val Royeaux and in Starkhaven, and for Cullen to pull suitable candidates for conversion to Leliana’s arsenal. While at Orzammar, they may have ‘liberated’ some construction plans from the dwarves. Unfortunately, they were unable to ‘liberate’ any additional builders. Hard enough to convince a dwarf to come above ground, harder yet to convince them to do so for an entity they believe maintains ties to the Chantry.

But are they not bound to the Chantry now? Cassandra’s coronation was weeks ago. Cullen and the other advisors attended. He cannot help but think that Sabina’s absence was intentional, even as Cassandra is one of her closest friends. And it is not possible she plans to make an enemy of the Chantry. Stability across Thedas is the priority of both institutions. The Inquisition and the Divine must work together in order to maintain peace, for the continent to heal. 

With their business settled, Sabina dismisses her advisors, Cullen included, but he hangs back. If she will have him, he will accompany her to other engagements. 

“Are you tired?” he asks. 

She looks it, blotchy dark circles under her eyes, deeper than normal. Waving him off, she reaches for the water pitcher, pouring herself a glass but not yet drinking.

“I have to see Warden Amell yet, make sure he has no questions.”

“Didn’t Dorian see to him?” 

Of course she doesn’t slow down. At least not yet. She’s still calculating, manipulating the pieces around her. But the Red Lyrium, of course its expulsion from their bodies must still be a priority. He catches the tension on her face, more than that, he catches how it does not abate.

They walk the distance to the Undercroft together, his hand at the small of her back. Leliana encouraged them, after their marriage was formalized, to be affectionate, but not scandalous, in public. Apparently it does wonders for Sabina’s image, makes her appear softer, more feminine, approachable. Sabina scoffs at the notion. 

Daylen has nothing for her, not yet. He still needs to sort through the boxes Dorian delivered. Most of all he’s excited for the mural etchings. The little mechanical translator already sits on his worktable, glowing and alert, ready to be used. Her hand presses to the side of her head as Daylen speaks about nonsense, the details of his experiments no one but he can really understand. 

Sabina’s eyes flutter closed. “Okay, alright.”

He takes it upon himself to lead her back to their quarters. Once inside, he directs her to sit on the bed, kneels at her feet to untie the laces to her boots. He has always found them strangely heavy for her small feet. As if she should always be in dancing shoes. She dances so beautifully, makes him feel clumsy in comparison. 

\--

Cullen works well into the night, though there is painfully little for him to do. Now he feels himself strong enough to return to the battlefield, if necessary. But there is no combat on the horizon. He feels like a costumed relic. 

Shaking off his too-warm coat, he goes back to his paperwork. It is not that he is avoiding returning to his quarters, only he does not wish to wake Sabina. She was dead on her feet when he left her.

It's useless, his desire to work when there is no real toil. Harding went upstairs an hour ago, Sera slipping in sometime later. Selfish, utterly selfish for him to still be in the tower.

Leaving his coat behind, he walks the stairs, the paths, to the gardens. He means to go to the chapel. At such an hour, it may well be empty. In his ears, the sound of summer insects. A few months more and they will be dead.

Before the statue of Andraste, Cullen lights a candle, transferring from another, already ablaze. The flame licks at his palm as he passes over the lit wick. He repeats the gesture, closer the second time than the first. It is warm against his hand, but it does not charr him. Maker.

"Cullen?" Sabina stands in the doorway of the chapel, her hair in a knot at the top of her head. Her linen dress stops just short of the ground, wrapped around her body in soft folds. His intention had been to not disturb her, but in his absence from their bed, he clearly has.

The offering candle he returns to its rightful place. They stand on opposite sides of the arch, facing one another. Cullen is a bit ashamed being caught out, testing the magic that now shames him. At least it was by Sabina. She may at least understand.

"Sabina."

She remains rooted in place, just outside, waiting, obviously for him. She will come no further, he knows as much. A reality between them they have never quite managed to reconcile. 

Believer. Atheist.

"I will be in the gardens," her figure disappears from the door frame as suddenly as it appeared. 

Cullen does not rush his words, spinning the Chant as he had originally intended, drawing out the moments between words, within them as well. As he finishes, a candle, not his, goes dark, the wick and wax expired. He presses a hand to his forehead. 

In the darkness, Sabina sits on one of the long stone benches, her feet flat, knees bent. Her dress bunches up around her. Eyes tilted towards the stars, she is exceedingly still.

"I've finished," he offers.

He catches the smile she tries to bury. "So you have."

There is just enough space for him to sit beside her. When he does, upright, feet on the ground, she leans her back against his shoulder. His arm comes to wrap around her, allowing his hand to rest at her stomach. There is a difference, yes, just a bit.

"You know," she begins, "I do know the Chant. Of course I do. My family is very devout. Even my mother, though she was not born into it. Converts are perhaps the most devout of all." Her fingers trail along his arm, stroking in an even rhythm. The contact makes his skin goose flesh, even as there is still his tunic sleeve between them. "I tried as a girl to believe, I really did. I thought if I could, it would make everything better. But I couldn't. I couldn't make myself believe in the Maker's light." Her head lolls against his shoulder.

"That's not..." but he cannot fathom how to finish his sentence. "You do not force yourself to true belief."

"You wish I did, do you not?"

He thinks on her words. No, that is not quite right. "I do not understand how you cannot believe. You have seen Demons, Spirits, walked in the Fade, seen Divine Justina after her death." He could continue, but Sabina cuts him off.

"None of those things require a Maker." Her hands still. "They only require Demons, Spirits, and the Fade."

The long silence stretches between them. For a moment, he thinks Sabina may have fallen asleep against him. 

"You do not mean to make war against the Chantry." Cullen is somewhat afraid of her answer.

Her hand reaches for his; their fingers lace together. 

On the matter, Sabina remains silent.

\--

It is somewhat akin to seeing the painting rendered by the Val Royeaux artist of questionable talent, but she is standing before him in Skyhold's courtyard. So much does Cassia Trevelyan resemble the butchered portrait, Cullen almost believes she sat for it.

Next to Sabina, she is shorter, more delicate, with straight dark hair, lighter eyes and skin. Her smile is filled with perfectly white, straight teeth. She glows in the sunlight. They are sisters, undoubtedly.

Sabina embraces her, nearly forgets she is not meant to lift heavy things, and Cullen must stop her from picking Cassia up off the ground. They laugh in each other's faces, Sabina holding Cassia's pink cheeks in her hands. 

Cullen stands back, waiting to be introduced, though he is not troubled that Sabina appears to have forgotten him. It is enough to see her smile. When Cassia's hand presses against the increasingly noticeable curve of Sabina's stomach, he feels his chest constrict. He worries and he longs and he aches, all at once. 

When Sabina reaches for him, he steps towards the women, his hands clasped behind his back. 

"Cassia, this is Commander Cullen Ru-" she stops herself, realizing her mistake. "This is my husband, Cullen."

Cassia, short as she is, must stand on her toes to throw her arms around Cullen's shoulders. She holds him with a warmth that exceeds their brief meeting. 

"Sister has written so much about you," her cheeks are flushed straight through.

Cullen finds that hard to believe, tells her as much.

"Oh! But she has, even before you were together. Her letters were always short, but full of your name."

When Cullen ventures to see Sabina's face, she has already turned away, embarrassed by Cassia's admission of her sentimentality.


	15. You Made the Mistake of Loving Him Too Much, Too Soon, Too Pure

The ache of a voice unspoken will not leave Daylen be. To subsume himself under a hoard of Darkspawn, to surrender to this blight upon the world when he only ever had two wishes. Daylen Amell wishes to be good. He wishes to be loved.

He knows, quite well, that he has been good. When his mother sent him to the Circle, he sang the Chant and stayed quite still in the templar's arms. When Duncan came to the Circle, Daylen threw himself at the Wardens with a full heart. Standing before the Archdemon, Daylen struck, the final blow with Alistair's sword, just in case Morrigan was not quite as clever as she thought. He will cure the Calling, because no one else can. No one else has ever been this close.

So, yes. Daylen knows he has been good.

Please, please, please, he wishes, let him be loved as well.

Their room is dark and warm, but Alistair's bare chest is ever so slightly cool against his fingertips. They went to bed bare chested, fewer scraps of fabric to hinder their progress, to stop the trails of fingers and mouths. Laying on their sides, Alistair's hand rests at Daylen's hip, squeezing and releasing in an in breaking pattern, harder and harder each time.

He tangles his fingers best he can in Alistair's short hair. In the darkness he cannot quite see, but he has had a decade to memorize the contours of Alistair's face, tip of his nose, swell of his cheeks. He spends time, selfishly stolen, looking at other pieces of his friend as well. Might make Alistair blush if he knew of all the intervals Daylen has lusted, assuming nothing would come from it.

"Alistair, oh," Daylen gasps, running his hands down the length of his friend's back, touching against sweat and skin. Alistair's lips against his, moist, welcoming. His mind is invaded by many words that are barely pronounceable in his current state. The clearest one of all is always 'home.' Alistair is Daylen’s home, he has been more than any other place or person he has ever known.

Daylen's fingers stop just above the band of Alistair's smalls, waiting for encouragement, permission. As his hands travel downward, he feels the tension in Alistair's muscles, the hesitancy there.

They have slept together in a single bed for months, since Alistair's return from Weisshaupt. They have still not crossed this threshold. But Maker, Maker Daylen wants him. He wants to be pounded into the mattress, to be clawed at and ruined. But most of all, he wants Alistair to be the one to do it. Because Alistair whispers into his hair that he loves him, more than he ever thought possible. When he's not whispering, he's laughing, and Daylen loves that about Alistair. Loves everything about Alistair until he is so giddy he feels unreal.

"Please, Alistair, let me touch you?"

A solid exhale, even and smooth. "Okay, okay, show me what to do."

"Nothing yet, love, just feel."

Daylen's hand starts at the curve of Alistair's ass, pawing and groping, lavishing at his skin before sneaking his hand around, gripping the base of Alistair's cock. Smooth stroke from base to tip, waiting for a reaction. Alistair is only half hard, a little more as Daylen peppers kisses across his face, where ever his mouth happens to land on its journey.

"Love you," Daylen assures. Alistair is still so tense. "Love you so much."

"I love you too." 

Daylen wishes he could better see Alistair's eyes, but his chest constricts all the same. Each time he hears those words, he feels too light, like he could evaporate, become nothing, and he'd be happy about it. Happy to be so utterly devastated by Alistair's lips, his tongue.

"Roll onto your back?" Daylen pushes gently at Alistair's shoulder, encouraging him along. He wants to taste him, to feel the weight of his cock, heavy in his mouth. Suck and make him groan, his hands tangled in the sheets or, better yet, in Daylen's hair, taking on a hint of dominance, even if it must be teased out at first.

But instead, Alistair reaches for his wrist, slows Daylen’s deft strokes before stopping his motions completely. "Daylen."

He can hear the crack in Alistair's voice, the verge of something terrifying. No, no, no. Only this time Daylen isn't wearing his boots. Stupid, so stupid. He should have known, poor, sweet Alistair, who maybe wishes to be loved just as much as Daylen does, who shared all his horrors and triumphs too for a decade, maybe even before that. Both of them were children in systems of power that long predate their birth. And here Alistair is, about to give Daylen something he himself does not want.

"Alistair."

Daylen can not stop the sob which rises in his throat, a wretched, sour thing. Nowhere to go but back against Alistair's chest, letting his friend's arms wrap around his body as he trembles. So bloody selfish. Daylen cannot say for certain now that he is good.

"I love you, I do, but..."

Daylen does not wish to hear the rest of it. Already having taken his evening doses of lyrium, massive as they are to calm his mind, he can only stumble out of bed. Pulling on his robes, Daylen resolves to work, to put this out of his mind until his demise. Alistair does not stop him as he leaves.

\--

Thom has been an exceedingly patient research subject; Daylen is glad for him. Not many men would willingly subject themselves to arcane substances known to lead to organic abominations the likes of the Red Templar monsters. But Thom takes doses of whatever Daylen concocts for him, straight faced, if a bit exhausted. Vial after vial he swallows down. He must be full of magics by now, bursting at the seams.

He may have masqueraded as a false Warden for a long time, but now he truly does the Order a great service.

It still pains Daylen to think, the one thing that defined him most as a man lies in tatters. The Wardens saved him, and they, in their own way, will kill him too.

With his stained fingers, he resumes his work. Hundreds, maybe thousands of gold from the Inquisition's coffers has been spent on his experiments. Alchemy is not so unusual an art, but he does not consider this to be the task of the alchemist. Daylen wishes to be more than that, he wishes to be precise, to craft steadfast laws that may be followed in the future, not simple brews only for today.

"You have the look of a great man, Daylen," Thom assures. He talks more when Anders is out, admitting that the other mage makes him nervous, always playing with those stones. 

More and more Anders is called away, the Inquisitor's pregnancy requiring his healing skill to guide it along. The developing trust between Anders and the Inquisitor surprises Daylen. Though he has always found Anders to be a good man, many disagree with his evaluation. 

Daylen keeps his hands busy.

"It does not matter, how I look," Daylen counters. "Only what I accomplish." He pours the day's second vial. Elfroot, turquoise, Darkspawn blood, dwarf blood, Dagna's, specifically. It comes out sort of purple, very thin, sticks to the glass when he swirls it, though. "All that matters is my deeds."

"And that is how I know you are a great man."

Daylen wishes he could take that as a comfort.

\--

After dinner, he returns Thom to his quarters. The Inquisitor does not want Thom wandering about Skyhold on his own, even as he may belong now, at least on paper, to the Wardens. Daylen knows well enough they are only here at her mercy. Part of him understands why she is so unforgiving, to be betrayed by someone she trusted with the lives of her allies, her friends.

Daylen does not intend to return to his room, return to Alistair, instead choosing to work through the night, sipping lyrium laced tea to stay awake, to be able to think straight for a few minutes in between bouts of reckless noise.

"Daylen?" Alistair's voice, his footsteps too. Everything can crumble so quickly if he doesn't concentrate, Alistair’s presence will make this impossible.

Even now he would throw himself at his friend's feet, beg for forgiveness. At least then they may be friends. If Daylen could only stuff down his ache long enough to save Alistair, then march happily to his grave. That might well be better than this.

The words hang heavy in his mouth. 'I am sorry.' They don’t come out.

"Daylen, don't hate me." Alistair, ever repentant for things beyond his own control. There are those who would call him a failure because he is not King. Not once have his detractors considered that Alistair is a man, with hopes and dreams and fears of his own. He is not a political pawn. Daylen, too, may have forgotten. Alistair should control his own destiny, not be shackled to Daylen’s 

"I could never hate you, I was in the wrong."

"Oh, Daylen." 

Alistair's arms wrap around him from behind, pulling Daylen's back to his chest. He feels the press of Alistair's kiss against his head, then a second.

"I want to be what you need, so much," Alistair confides. But it is too late.

Daylen's hands shake against Alistair's, curling their fingers together. The Calling spikes in his head. Again and again, an erratic drum beat. Go, Daylen. Die, Daylen. Too much time already. The Witch stole you some, now pay your penance.

"Please, just forget this whole thing," Daylen pleads, but he keeps his hands over Alistair's.

"I'll fix this."

Alistair turns Daylen in the circle of his arms, keeping their bodies close together. His fingers run along the clasps on Daylen's robes, pulling them apart as he reaches the floor. With Alistair kneeling before him, it is as if Daylen is in a dream.

The look on Alistair's face is stern, concerned.

Daylen should stop this, but he cannot help himself. "Let me show you." His hands card through Alistair's hair.

He rises and pushes Alistair against the table, too clumsily and something brakes. Best to worry about that later. Desperately, Daylen paws at Alistair's slacks, pulling them down over his half-hard cock. He kneels there, between at Alistair's feet. Every fiber of Daylen wants this, so he forces himself to forget that Alistair does not. Taking Alistair's erection in one hand, he wraps his mouth around the head of his cock, covers his teeth with his lips. Bobs, strokes, tries to put the infernal moments of love and desperation into his motions. Daylen wants Alistair to feel this as he does.

Alistair grows harder, but not by much. Standing rigidly straight, he barely moves, saying nothing. There is nothing there. It destroys Daylen. Mistake. Always. He is so stupid for this man. So stupid.

He pulls off of Alistair, buries his face in his hands instead.

Dropping to his knees, Alistair drops apologies too. That he is an idiot. This doesn't fix anything.

\--

"Anders?" Daylen whispers after the knock. Maybe that will make his transgressions less of an intrusion.

The healer opens the door, eyes clouded with sleep. The flush of health has returned to Anders’ frame during his time at Skyhold; Daylen knows full well his own personal deterioration. He is not blind.

"Is Bethany here?" Daylen can already guess the answer, but he must be sure.

"No."

Daylen does not waste time, pushing Anders back into the room, kicking the door shut behind them with such a clatter he feels it in his fragile lungs. Surely such a noise will not go unnoticed, but likewise it cannot be so unusual. Skyhold is always awake.

A haze of mistakes, at least this one is not so vividly a repetition. Yes, still a repetition, but a distant one.

Anders does not yell, does not force Daylen to cease. He pushes back with his lips, claws at Daylen's robes, because at even if he does not know everything, Anders may well know enough.

Once this might have been familiar, the press of Anders' body against his, teeth on the paper-skin at his neck. How Anders is unrepentant in his assaults against another body. Consuming enough one forgets to breathe. Daylen forgets, indeed, that he is supposed to be a person, skin and bones and sinew holding aloft a mind always called brilliant. Not loved. Never that.

Anders mouth traces its path down the line of Daylen's stomach, palms pressed to hipbones. His teeth stay sharp against the angles of Daylen’s body.

"Keep your eyes open, Daylen."

Swallowing hard, he nods his assent. 

He knows full well that means Anders will remember, and Daylen will be unable to forget. Not himself, he is far enough gone already when Anders forces himself into Daylen too soon. Too much. But the magic makes up the difference, a bridge of experience to make Anders’ cock into less of a weapon he uses to destroy what is left of Daylen. 

The magic itself is a transgression against the Maker, to use it for something as selfish as sex. Daylen doesn’t want the comfort. He wants to be punished, to be wrecked beyond recognition. He doesn’t want this empty mercy of unrepentant pleasure, but his body accepts it. The thud of Anders inside him.

Hands holding at his thighs, large enough to pin Daylen as Anders wishes, as Daylen wishes as well, sick as he is. To contort.

"Alistair." 

And he doesn't even feel guilty. Anders wants his eyes open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are always very much appreciated.
> 
> I also accept hatemail
> 
> [tumblr!](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com/)


	16. There's More Than One Way to Stop A Hostile Takeover

Sabina hates this. She hates everything about this. The ache in her feet, in her back, how none of her things from the Marches fit. Everything that has been sewn at Skyhold itches, even if the cloth is imported. Her boots don’t fit, swollen as her feet are. She is swollen all together, and she hates it. 

Even as the temperature drops, she sweats more, wiping it away from her face, up into her too dry hair. If she waits too long, it will drop from her forehead and onto the parchment under her hands. Nothing redeems this. Nothing.

Slipping out of her chair, she pulls on her robe. At least that is finely made. As long as she leaves it open, it fits just fine. Her arms have grown no thicker. Bare-footed, she paces the length of her chambers, cursing under her breath. This setback has cost her months already. ‘Setback.’ She forces herself to reevaluate. Cullen would be horrified that she thinks of their child as a setback rather than a blessing. Yet in her schema there is no such thing as a blessing, only circumstances to be weighed, reactions to take.

She tosses off her robe, though she had just put it on. Next, she sheds the dress that refuses to lay quite right against her stomach. Stripped bare, Sabina stands before her mirror and wishes to weep. Before this, she was a weapon. Years of dances and knives made her so. The vulnerability of being meat is not lost on her.

Cullen won't return for hours yet, not until time for dinner. 

She wants to run along the shores of the Storm Coast, to lose the last three years of her life in the crashing waves. They could carry her home, where she was reckless and free. Instead she is only in the Inquisitor's chambers at Skyhold, fat and uncomfortable with a child inside her. It was madness, learning to become a title. Madness also that she succeeded. 

Cassia says 'Father is pleased.' Of course he is. His line is getting the heir it needed, from their Not-a-mage girl. If only he knew. But she is responsible now, respectable. All of Thedas may bend to the will of Inquisitor Trevelyan, Herald of Andraste, Who Walks in the Light of the Maker. List her titles, it might make them true. 

She laughs morbidly. Already she has been responsible, at least by some accounts, for the death of one Divine.

She feels the baby kick. Sweet and short, then rumbling on. It makes her forget the pain in her back and her swollen feet and that she wants a drink or ten. Most of all, she forgets to hate herself for her successes as much as her failures.

\--

Sera bounces even when they are seated. She twirls her hands and lays them on Sabina’s stomach, cooing about the baby that is still some months off. Since Sera first found out about the child she has been ecstatic. Sabina could not have predicted such behavior from her friend. Unexpected to say the least.

But Sera winds colorful, incoherent stories about the baby, how she promises to be very careful at first, when she gets to hold them. How as they grow older, she’ll teach them the bow, even though their mother never took to it, no matter how hard Sera tried to teach her. 

Sabina smiles, lets Sera rumble on and on, her voice catching higher and faster as the words spill out. Being in Sera’s tavern room is a bit of an odd comfort, the brightly colored fabrics, too many trinkets cluttering the space. She can’t go on the roof anymore, doesn’t have the flexibility to climb through the window. Plus, someone would probably yell at her. At her! The Inquisitor. She hates how suddenly other people believe themselves to know better than her the limitations of her own body. Yes, she is keenly aware.

Instead, they head downstairs, to walk the courtyard arm in arm. Sera takes twice as many steps to keep stride, even though Sabina is a touch slower than she was before. At least this is doing something, not brooding in her chambers, or worse, sitting with her sister, more a stranger than she could have imagined, even in her nightmares. And nightmares Sabina has, that is for certain. Always floating around her head, shoving themselves into the corners of her mind before springing forward at the oddest of times.

Little by little, their arms disentangle, Sera can’t keep her paws off of Sabina’s stomach. She presses and prods, sometimes light, sometimes with a viciousness that comes with uncertain anxiety. But Sabina never stops her. At least Sera is not passive in her assault, not like the others who believe themselves to be doing Sabina a service. Sera is never passive, it’s one of her most redeeming features. 

\--

A note slipped under her door as she naps informs her that Cullen wishes to meet her in the gardens. As she stretches, Sabina realizes that she has slept through dinner. It is quite late now, the torches have been lit. Skyhold requires so much artificial light that it blots out the stars.

She pulls on a dress first, then her coat. Cold enough again that she needs it. She can already guess that he has gone to the chapel. His piety has not waned. Not that it is her place to question his belief, even as she may find it silly, childish. She finds a great many things silly, childish. Both regarding her own character flaws and those of others.

The air smells of smoke. Almost as sharply as when Anders first came to Skyhold. 

Cullen stands just inside the arch, facing the statue of his Andraste. The candles are so bright, Sabina swears they will one day blind her. Like looking into the sun. 

“You plan to make war,” he does not turn from his idol. 

She has never been convinced that he would pick her over the Chantry, over his Maker. That is the ultimate condition of his love, though he could never admit to it. At least not before he has been tested.

“I do not have the allies,” she admits. “And I cannot fight.”

His laughter is a complicated thing. Sweet and soothing, bitter and harsh. He layers the sounds until Sabina cannot deny he is on the verge of breaking. 

“Strange to think.”

“What is?” she asks.

“That I stopped your war with our child.”

His statement rings so true that she barely breaks the urge to throttle him. His boldness in the matter is so unexpected, out of character. 

“Even before, I did not have the allies for conventional warfare. Josephine would have stopped me. Everyone would have abandoned me. They nearly have already,” she admits. With Coryphaeus defeated, her circle disbanded bit by bit. Her war, if she still wishes to have it, must be oblique. “Everyone leaves.”

“There is more?” he asks.

Sabina sighs, sitting on the stone bench, though it is quite far from the chapel. 

Cullen does turn, finally, standing in the arch, his hands buttressed against the walls, as if he could hold up the institution she so despises. 

“Cassandra is my friend. But I do not know Divine Victoria.” 

As if by mistake, Cullen realizes something he should not. It would have been better to let lie. "Leliana..."

Her chest constricts. "Do not ask, Cullen. You do not wish to know."

Even with the distance between them, she can see the rage as it builds in his muscles, traveling down the line of his neck, from his shoulders to his wrists. "You and Leliana have been planning this all along." He steps from the chapel. Sabina has no fear that he would ever lay a hand on her. "Why? Because she is not now Divine? Is it your desire to destroy the peace we've built?"

Sabina snaps back, "There has not been peace in Thedas for a thousand years, Cullen. You know that as well as I. The Chantry has failed to produce stability. It has run it's course and proved lacking."

"And you believe yourself to know better than a thousand years of Clerics and Scholars?"

"You have gotten your wish, Cullen. There is to be no war." Yes. She does believe it to be so, she knows better, because Andrastians are simple, but she will never admit it aloud.

His shoulders slump, a hand winds in his hair, pulling his curls from his scalp. "You don't need a war. You only need Leliana."

And those are the truest words he has spoken. Because he may not be as clever as she, but he is no idiot. Her plans could be unraveled by his hands, having given so much away already. This love has made her stupid.

“You will hate me, over this.” Her hand rest lightly on her swollen stomach. 

She may be cruel, and harsh. Those around her learn this lesson well enough, Cullen included. But Sabina is certain she will improve the lot of Thedas, whether they agree with her methods or not. 

Cullen steps from the arch, into the garden. The gold halo from the lit candles dissipates as he moves into the darkness. In her flat shoes, Sabina curls her toes. She has no reason to fear him. He would never dare lay a hand on her, but there are other ways to slice. Of cutting and slaying, they both know far too well. Success and defeat are often twinned by sacrifices. 

Kneeling at her feet, he draws up her skirt over her shins, her thighs. Her skin prickles when the night air brushes against it. He kisses at the inside of her legs until she moves forward, just to the edge of the bench. His hands scorch against her skin as they trace patterns. There is nothing for him to say, not yet. There are a thousand things she wishes to scream at him, but she doesn’t. Quiet. 

She hasn’t shielded them against voyeurs, though she carries her powders as always, sewn now into the seams of her coat, hidden pockets. But there isn’t a scandal to be found here. The Inquisitor and her husband, no matter that he is also the Commander. No matter that she thinks herself very clever, and the world very stupid. 

He pulls aside her smalls, dipping his tongue against her exposed sex. Sabina reaches for his hair, but stops short, pulls her hand away and allows him to work her as he wishes. Her skirt bunches around her, her stomach full, she nonetheless narrows her vision to what she can see of him, clothed shoulders, back, his legs tucked underneath him. The wetness of his mouth against her, working so frantically, she won’t hold back, she can’t. But neither can she speak a word, though her breath hitches as Cullen’s finger slides into her, curling, pressing. Coaxing her orgasm from her. Not merely from her cunt, but from her mouth as well, a labored gasp for air as she comes. 

His stubble rubs against her thigh as he pulls away, his finger still thrusting inside her, faster now, forcing a second peak though she is already worn. This time she does grab at him, holding his hair in her fist even though his face has pulled away. Her hands do not stay in place, he does not allow it. Cullen stands, pushes her back, wrapping his free arm around her so she does not topple over. His weight over hers, he thrusts and thrusts with his fingers until she is wound so tight she nearly screeches into the night. 

Worn, she waits for what comes next, letting her body slack while it can. Cullen’s eyes are darkened, as much as they can be. She’ll always see the ring of light most vividly. 

He lowers her against the bench, his breathing still heavy. “Don’t do this, please,” he pleads.

Sabina’s hand dances along his arm. “We came to the Inquisition to serve.”

“Who?”

“Thedas.” But she only means that in the most abstract of ways. 

Cullen sighs. Again, they solve nothing. “Do you even love me?”

“Always,” she tells the truth.

\--

Sera crashes through Sabina’s door without knocking. No bother, she could hear the blonde’s footfall in the hallway long before the door swung open. Sabina lays down her pen, she hasn't really been writing in any case.

Out of breath, Sera’s words rush out all at once in a jumble that requires a touch of interpretation. “Ah was downstairs with the ‘Ero and he said alright Ah’m gonna take this vial of goopy stuff and he made beardy-asshat drink it too and then they both fell over and Ah thought ‘sweet, maybe something awesome will ‘appen like they grow a tail or wake up a dragon or something. But naw beardy-asshat woke up but the ‘Ero didn’t and now Anders-”

Sabina’s attention snaps when Sera says the Hero did not wake up. Not bothering to ask for explanation, she heads directly for the Undercroft, moving as quickly as she can manage in her current state. Honestly, she feels ready to burst. It would be a relief. 

In the Undercroft, Alistair’s back is ramrod straight, unmoving in its stillness, a hand clasped over his mouth. On the floor, Rainer’s eyes direct to Amell’s prone body. There is fluid in his beard, it matches that frothing from Amell’s mouth thick, obscene. It bubbles up but his body is still. He is the only thing in the room quieter than Alistair.

Anders whispers under his breath, healing magic spilling from his hands in rapid bursts, over and over.

“What happened?” her question is directed at Alistair, but it is Rainer who answers. He rises from the floor, apparently knowing well enough to fetch lyrium for Anders. 

“Daylen’s Cure. It is...vicious.” It is only now that Sabina realizes there is blood in Rainer’s beard as well. “His heart has stopped.”

Sabina narrows her eyes. Alistair still does not move, though she can hear his breathing. “You said cure? Does it work? Do we know it works?”

“Aye,” Rainer answers, “I took it first. Once he was sure, Daylen took the second dose.”

The second dose that killed Daylen Amell.

Only death is sometimes not so permanent, because Amell begins coughing, more fluid from high stomach, enough that it looks like it could have come from ten men. Thick and brown. Anders turns him to his side so he doesn’t swallow it back down. It comes and comes, his chest convulsing. 

“There was not so much in me,” Rainer says. “So much of the taint.”

Blood comes from Amell’s nose next, then from his mouth as the taint runs dry. The muck of his illness, rejected at last. Other things inside of him rupture, of that she has no doubt. Sabina wonders how much of it is in her, filling the spaces in between the parts authentically her. Briefly, she thinks of the Warden she fucked when she was nineteen. She can’t hazard to guess his name. The one who put a child in her before the one she now carries. It’s so morbid to think on.

“Fuck, fuck,” Anders curses, goes back to his work. He tries to stitch together a body actively coming apart. Lyrium bottle at his lips, he downs the whole thing in one go before laying his hands on Amell’s skin again.

Alistair moves, but not towards the Hero, away. He turns and walks out, the heavy door slamming shut behind him.

Anders works magic until Amell is quiet, his breathing coming strained, but even. His blue eyes fly open, but do not look at anything in particular. The Hero of Ferelden has died and lived both in the space of an hour. His second great legacy to Thedas nearly kills him, just as the first should have as well. Perhaps, yes, he is remarkable, but that doesn’t change the fact he looks a broken thing on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always very much appreciated and keep my engine running.
> 
> Also! In case you missed it. There is now art for this series! On Both Matter chapter 5 there is Hawke/Anders art from [LadyJeanClaude](http://ladyjeanclaude.tumblr.com) and chapter 8 of Constellations art from [DrennTrev](http://drenntrev.tumblr.com) of Sabina/Cullen! Seriously getting these two pieces from such talented artists made my week. So please, show the artists some love, they totally deserve it.


	17. Let Everything Be Bright and Beautiful In this Fleeting Moment

Cullen hears the ringing. Sabina does too. In hushed whispers, they speak of it, though never for long. The tears prick in the corners of her eyes, in his too. But they push them away. Under different circumstances, it may have been a blessing, but there are too many noises, heralding too many tragedies.

So when their son is born and he rings faintly in their ears, Cullen knows that promises are not good enough. He may keep all the promises in the world, but sometimes, fate will differ in its course.

Their child is happy, bright, alive. He is beautiful. And rings. Rufus.

Cullen doesn’t believe along any different paths of fate, he could love anything more than he does his son. 

He is born with a head of dark curls that falls out day by day until he is bald. Something about the process is so painfully beautiful. Anders says that it not unusual, it will grow back when he is a bit older. And his dark eyes, like his mother, still unfocused in their wandering, flicker around, never settling. Cullen wonders what he hears.

Sabina nurses on a precise schedule, in between administrative tasks of the Inquisition. Cullen has to show her how to hold a child. She admits she hasn’t done so since Cassia was born, and even then, only very rarely, surrounded by concerned, clucking nannies as they were. In all honesty, Cullen is no better, only perhaps he wants to hold their child more than she does. He suspects that for her the sound is louder, more infused with strange compounds as she is.

When she rises in the morning to feed him, she takes the loose white sheet with her, wrapping it around her body to fend of the chill, throwing out a joke that they should have worked out their timing for a warm summer birth, rather than in the depths of winter when her toes are freezing. But her boots fit again, she smiles.

Fragile against her breast, Rufus is loud enough to make them both wince. But Sabina perseveres, rocks him until he sleeps. Under the blankets he is quieter, but Cullen knows neither of them can forget his song. 

“Once he sleeps through the night, we will go,” she keeps her voice low, as to not wake Rufus. 

Straddling Cullen at the waist, she runs her fingers through his hair. The sheets fold and float around her body, draping her in white. His hands press against her stomach, the scar from the dragon. She has cursed the idea that it will never be flat again, that her hips feel wider, that she will never dance the same way now that her body feels wrong. Cullen is sure those are all untruths. 

“Go where?” he asks.

"The Fade."

His arms move outward, from her stomach to her hips, then up her ribcage to her broad shoulders. Her dark eyes never leave his, locked in place. He can feel the fluttering of her lungs inside her chest.

"Why?" Cullen asks. 

There are many justifications she may give, some of them would sit better with him than others. For some time now, he has forced to be suspect of her motives, her actions. He does not think himself powerless, but he still hopes her threat to overthrow the Chantry is an idle one. For a long time she made such pronouncements with a mug of ale in one hand, screeching that the Chantry would burn before collapsing into a heap of laughter. But that was at Haven, before she became Inquisitor, before they lay hands on one another. Before this love.

"Everyone has asked. You, Amell, Anders," she tilts her body forward until they are nearly chest to chest. 

She wears the breast band now with some frequency, it covers only a fraction of her wound. Cullen has caught her appraising her naked body in the long mirror, a look of disgust, or maybe disappointment that it no longer matches the image in her mind. The first time, he said that she would always be beautiful. Sabina bit back that she did not worry on his account.

"You seemed against it before." Nearly a year ago, when Cullen first broached the subject with her at Anders request, she had flat out refused to entertain the idea.

Sabina continues stretching and nesting until her full weight rests on top of him, her hands at the back of his head, her head on his chest. The heat of her breaths roll against his skin when she speaks. "You say her name in your sleep."

For a moment, his pulse stops. So violent are her simple words, they knock his heart flat in his chest.

"Neria," she says without inflection. 

Not once, not ever, has she asked. He did not know that while he slept, he spoke of the dead. At least not aloud. His arms wrap around her back, pulling her into his sinking feeling. They are collapsing, but they will do so together.

"Darling, I did not know."

If she weren't laying flat on her chest, certainly she would wave him off with a flick of her wrist. Instead she merely exhales. "I did not presume you wished to speak on the matter."

"She is not important."

Sabina laughs, "I'd rather you say nothing than you lie. I know who she is. Warden Amell told me of your friend." Her nails clutch against his chest, scratching only slightly. "You have experienced horrors which would haunt anyone. Do not think me heartless for not asking after your nightmares. Only I believed you wanted to keep them as such, not allow them to bleed into your waking hours."

His fingers skim along her back. When she shivers, he pulls the sheets higher to shield her from the cold.

"No," she interjects, "your hands are warmer."

Conceding, he strokes along her spine, listening to her breathe.

\--

Dorian makes it look so easy. Of course he does, raised in a place where magic is said to be a precious gift, an expensive one, cultivated through breeding and refinement. In Tevinter, magic opens doors, rather than close them. The fire conforms to his hand, licking, teasing, performing. 

When they first met, what, two years ago? More? More. Cullen should have felt inclined to distrust Dorian, but he didn't, he doesn't. Their friendship has mostly been an easy one, over books and chess and friendly debate. They get on well, despite their differences.

So it is to Dorian he turns when he could no longer ignore his charred veins.

"No, no," Dorian corrects. 

With a flourish of his hand, he bolts fire to the metal training dummy, so white-hot the chest piece begins to melt. The sheer power of such a simple flick of the wrist touches something deep inside of Cullen, and he wants to back out, a dread blocking out everything else he might feel. This was a terrible idea, trying to learn from Dorian. But there are few others he trusts, or is comfortable knowing his affliction. 

But he must learn to at least control it, stop it from forcing itself out of his body without permission. The first time was on the field of battle, excusable. He'd taken that gulp of sweet lyrium with Coryphaeus on the horizon. What had to be done was done. After that, Cullen resolved to put it out of his mind. But as Rufus came into the world, there was no lyrium. No battle to be one. But in Cullen's happiness, his ecstaticness, he'd felt magic so close to the surface of his being it terrified him.

So now, he asks Dorian for help.

"Perhaps we should try something...simpler," Cullen must force himself not to retreat.

Dorian sighs, dropping his shoulders somewhat. "Of course. Now hold out your hand."

Obeying, Cullen holds his hand palm up towards Dorian.

"Take is from me," Dorian instructs, producing a candle-less flame in his palm and holding it for Cullen to take.

Cullen presses his palm over top of Dorian's, grasping the flame in his hand as if it were tangible. It is tangible, weighty. The sensation scares him, but he forbids his face to show it. While it is surely only his imagination, he sees faces in the fire, torment and destruction. He sees mages. Dorian is a mage, and deep inside himself, Cullen knows his trust in his friend is not complete. But even with his doubts, this fire does not singe him. 

"Now, hit something with it."

Thinking of candles, of devotion and Andraste, apostates he dragged to the Circle, their fighting to be free, of Marian Hawke screaming, crying, clawing at his Templar armor, her short nails breaking and bleeding, screaming not to take her sister away. Sabina at sixteen, in a dark dress and light gloves, lifting her skirt for the Templar who took her sister away. The systems of oppression in which they have all been entangled, snared from their birth. And he, he was the oppressor, in the name of his Maker, and his own fear. The lyrium he drank with such giddy happiness that first time as a fresh templar, when he was nothing, of no value. But his abilities came. When he drank for Sabina, for Thedas, he was critically important. 

Mage. Mage, he repeats to himself. Do not call it by another word. Cullen admits, tight in his lungs, until he almost cannot breathe, that he is a mage. Not at three, or thirteen, or twenty-three, but he is now.

He directs his fire at the target, fast, streaming with an intensity that startles him, it burns, it melts. As hot and as dangerous as anything Dorian could conjure. He makes more fire than was handed to him. 

When it finishes, he has to gulp down air to keep from suffocating.

Dorian sighs, rubs Cullen's back as he wheezes. Cullen does not realize his words as they spill.

"Terrible, awful, I do not want this. No one should want this."

Clear and crisp, Dorian asks an unsettling question while he is still recovering. "Would you love your son less, were he a mage?"

Laden though the question is, Cullen cannot hesitate, "No."

"Then why do you love yourself less for the same?"

There is no time to respond. Sabina breezes in, graceful and poised, a bundle pressed against her chest. Saying nothing, she only watches the two men. Cullen tries to make his breath steady, his back straight. 

“Do not stop on my account,” she says. Her arms flex around their child, holding him closer to her body, shifting his weight.

But Cullen does want to stop. He wants to stop and never think on his magic again. But neither does he want to be the man he was three years ago, four. When he may have been a qualified man on parchment, but a wreck all the same. They may face disasters yet, some of them of their own making, but at least they are together. 

He steps towards Sabina, kisses her forehead. While she does not pull away, he can feel the frown on her lips, that delicate twitch. “You’re making Dorian wait.”

Another kiss to her cheek. “It is fine. Only know that I love you, and always will.” The words have a finality that startle him. 

He must resolve to be a better man than he has been because there are no other options. Seeing Sabina stand in absolute stillness tears his resolve. Thinking of his son as a mage does it as well. Change is not a simple thing, passing from day to day, becoming a different man. Atonement is not enough, keeping promises isn’t either. 

Dorian nods to him before they begin again. This time Cullen produces fire on his own accord, cradles it in his hand before striking out at the dummy. He pulls it back with less finesse, letting it flicker out. The only choice that remains is to swallow his fear, to eat it before it eats him.

\--

Sabina’s thighs press against his ribs, firm and cool. His own fingers skim her flesh, waiting for it to react, sometimes it rises to meet him. The lanterns are lit, Cullen feels safe here, though he can never forget that she is dangerous. Only he trusts her knives are not pointed at him. 

Their chambers are quiet, for the first time in months. Rufus is in Cassia’s care for the evening, though Cullen could swear he still hears him. It must be his imagination, haunting as it is.

“Cullen, I’ve been thinking,” she begins.

But Cullen isn’t really in any position to think, the way her wet sex presses against his bare chest. Her fingers are in his hair, pulling as it catches against her nails. He wants nothing more than to hold her over his cock, to thrust up into her until it pushes his name from her lips. Until she is sweaty and wrecked and satiated. 

“What are you thinking, darling?”

He pushes his palms at her hips, trying to coax her lower, to raise her hips and push down onto his straining erection, to ride him reckless. 

“I always thought I would leave my heir to the care of nannies, governesses, like I was raised. Coddled and sheltered, my parents near strangers to me.”

Cullen flinches, but lets her continue. If he stops her, she may never continue again on the topic, simply acting of her own accord, following what she believes to be right.

“But our son, I don’t want to send him away.” She looks to the stone wall instead of to Cullen. “I don’t want them to have him. Though I may well be terrible at this.”

“Terrible at what?” 

“Being a mother,” she says quite firmly. “I will be terrible at it.”

Cullen smiles, squeezes her at her waist even though she may hate it. When she finally looks back to him, he feels the confidence to start, to continue. “The fact you worry at all, shows you will not, in fact, be terrible.” 

A touch of a smile curls, just at one corner of her mouth. “How can you be so certain?”

“I cannot be. We may both be terrible. But I do not think that will be the case.”

“Why?” The strain in her voice expresses a need that strikes Cullen as quite desperate. 

“Because if we give into doubt, we have already failed. You know that as much as I. Better, perhaps.”

She puts her hands at his shoulders, curling her fingers around his neck, barely brushing the skin. 

“And you don’t doubt me?” she asks before pressing their lips together. Demanding entrance, she kisses him breathless, her own inhalation coming in frenzied bursts. His fingers slip inside her, pushing down the anxiety that will consume them both, blind and reckless as they have been. They had thought themselves so measured, so careful. 

No room is left to answer. No space left to breathe.


	18. Terrifyingly Brilliant and Brilliantly Awake as Solidified Aches Chart their Courses

Alistair wants to scream. He wants to scream and cry and smash through even inch of every thing that Daylen Amell has ever spent a bloody minute contemplating, constructing. Because for all of the Hero’s intellect, for his strength and undeniable courage, for as much as the mere mention of his name is loved and adored across Thedas, the actual man can be a hell of a dense arse when he wants to be.

Strange, Alistair thinks between the anger, the frustration, that he may be the only person, ever, to know that Daylen can be this cruel. Ten years ago, he couldn’t have imagined it. Their love for one another necessitates this pain cutting in at his ribs that Alistair cannot soothe.

But he doesn’t destroy everything Daylen owns, wrecking through bottles and vials, chemical compositions not yet committed to parchment, ephemerally they are only inside of their creator as of yet. These vilely beautiful concoctions are as much Daylen as the flesh and blood man before him. 

Alistair doesn’t flip the table or jump atop his friend, even now his dearest, throttling him in the face, because he’s a man, and not a spoiled boy. When he was young, he was taught the difference, even though he held on to being the boy for a very, very long time with broken nails and funny words. 

“You can’t just leave, you can’t run away every time something doesn’t go your way.” The irony of the words isn’t lost on Alistair. 

The Nightmare called Alistair a waste, all that potential, and what does he do with it? He helped save Thedas from the Blight, but that will never be enough, because there are those who think he should have been King, just by accident of his birth. He used to believe, truly, that Daylen was different, seeing him only as Alistair, his friend, understanding he could still be great by his own design. There was to be something great in service to the Order. But now the Wardens are gone. Cured as they are, Anders and Thom Rainer too, there are no proper Wardens left in lower Thedas, just four men who used to have foreign objects floating around in their blood, until they coughed it all up. Their bodily rejection of their contamination makes the whole world vulnerable, but protects the four of them from a fate that was once inevitable. 

Daylen’s fists clench and unclench just below the sleeve of his robes as he tries to hold something back. There is always something there, beneath the surface, that Alistair wanted to touch, hold. A knot of shared anguish that neither of them could properly contend with, that they were unwanted children. Even here at Skyhold, Alistair can feel it. It makes him want to run too, but they can’t, not yet.

“I am not running.”

“Yes you are!” Alistair throws up his hands, because at least then he cannot really be accused of being childish, only emotional. Dropping the pitch of his voice, he mimic’s Daylen’s, “Oh! Well I’ll just take off now that I’ve Cured the Calling! Guess the Wardens’ won’t kill me so I’ll have to find something else to ruin my life!”

Daylen’s face turns red with anger. For a moment, Alistair thinks all the destruction he’s been holding back has transferred into Daylen’s more slender frame. As if he’s going to burst apart in a futile attempt to not reveal the fissures that have always been there, the strain upon them that Daylen had no choice but to bare, and Alistair had no choice but to follow. 

“Do you think that’s what this is about?” Daylen grips at his hair. Alistair worries it will start coming out in silky fistfuls. Though he has struck the taint from his body, Daylen’s recovery is still a long way off. His mouth is full of blue and his wrists are sharp. Alistair hasn’t seen his collar bones, his ribs, not since the last time they lay in bed together, Alistair’s fingers were at the back of Daylen’s neck, lips at his cheeks. The love he can feel and taste, sweet in Alistair’s mouth, but he can’t make his body reciprocate. 

“Yes, I do,” he tries to keep his voice level, to not yield to the rising hysteria in Daylen’s 

“I have finished my work here. I’ve finished. You’re Cured. We’re Cured. I-I can’t. There are other matters that need, that need me. They are not here at Skyhold.” He wrings his hands until his joints turn white.

Alistair reaches out, not knowing innately what Daylen will do, how he will respond. He ghosts fingers over his friend’s shoulder, then down his arm. Daylen pushes himself away at first, stained-glass palms flat against Alistair’s chest, then launches himself forward again into his embrace. Well, the embrace isn’t there yet, but in a way, they both know that Alistair will always concede. To wrap his arms around Daylen’s back, to hold him, seems obscene, their affection is always contaminated with cruelty, but he can’t help it. Alistair can’t help the way Daylen still feels right against him, even if other things feel wrong. 

“Then take me with you. Don’t leave me again,” he presses the words to Daylen’s temple.

Daylen’s voice comes in labored gasps. “You don’t need me. You most of all.”

“You never listen,” Alistair bristles, but doesn’t let go.

Trapped the circle of Alistair’s arms, Daylen starts to shiver, small at first until they are rolling quakes. When Alistair pulls back to look at the mage’s face, his breath is visible, his lips chapped by ice, droplets of crystal clinging to his golden eyelashes. “Alistair…”

“Maker! Daylen what are you doing?” He doesn’t want to release Daylen, not entirely, but he pushes him away to appraise better the magic he is casting, to stop him from freezing himself solid out of some sort of anguish or spite. For a moment he thinks to Cleanse, to stop Daylen by force if he must. 

It is only then that Alistair sees his own hands, caked in cold, but he feels nothing. This is not Daylen’s magic, with his otherwise perfect control, gone awry. 

“Alistair, no.”

Him, he is doing this. Ice shattering from his hands rolling from Daylen’s body onto the floor, breaking apart, shattering as it falls. It is against Daylen, freezing him, but of Alistair’s making. Impossible. 

“No, no, no, NO!” Daylen screams and breaks away. But his concern is not with the branches of ice that threaten to overtake him, that spiderweb across his skin until their contact breaks. This time Alistair does catch that there are blond strands in between his strained fingers as his closed fists pull away. “I Cured you. I Cured you from the taint. I watched it, I watched it come up from your mouth, you choked it out, Alistair, Alistair. I took the magic out of you.” He itches at his own skin, red marks from his nails copying the fractured patterns where the ice has already melted away by means of his warmer body, it looks as if his skin is weeping as the water slicks away. “This cannot be, I cannot have failed.”

Alistair cannot object, only look at his hands, paler than they should be, the sheen of magic only slightly dissipated. But he did not know, he did not feel it until it was already too late.

Pacing the room, Daylen cannot cease tearing at himself. Alistair is too afraid to touch him. 

It is Daylen who statches the glass beaker from the table, who smashes it against the wall. Nothing important, not really. Whatever substance was inside it, Alistair never knows, never can tell, clings to the wall and stays there. It doesn’t even give them the satisfaction of watching it drip to the floor and fan out, creeping into their too cramped lives. It won’t touch them. Alistair needs something to touch them. 

Daylen breathes heavily, kneeling on the floor and putting his face between his hands. His shoulders heave and Alistair does nothing. 

“I do not know what the Maker wants of us,” Daylen’s voice cracks.

Alistair cannot answer, because he is unsure as well. At times, it seems too much for them to bare, for any of them to cope. They thought that ending the Blight would make them all heroes. It could only make them perpetual martyrs. Only, it took Alistair a very long time to realize that was the case, as optimistic as they were in the dark days, as careless as they became in the light.

“I have worked so hard,” Daylen needs no prompting. On the floor as he is, he looks very small, but Alistair is not fooled. “I thought I could understand, I could work to understand. But there is nothing. Nothing.”

“You understand, you get this more than anyone has in a thousand years,” he knows the words will not be comforting. “Daylen, you have done more than the Maker could ever want of anyone.”

“We are blessed and we are tortured,” Daylen’s pause is punctuated by a heavy gasp. “You say you love me, even now. It is true?”

“Always, Daylen. Always.” Alistair wants to touch, to hold. But like he predicted, his comforts have only brought harm. His body has fought this, every step of the way. This outburst in ice only shows that in some small way, he was right. There is something wrong. “I cannot change who I am. You have never asked me to change.”

Daylen laughs, resting his chin on his bent knees, keeping his arms wrapped tight around his legs. “You do not like men.” His accusation is only a partial truth.

“I love you,” Alistair counters. “And you love me.”

“That doesn’t change the fact you do not love men.” 

The patch of yellow alchemy stays firmly affixed to the wall. Daylen stares at it as if it is most interesting. Little by little it binds, crystallizes before their eyes.

“Maker,” Alastair covers his face with his hand, now warm enough to use. “I don’t ‘love’ women either. Just you. And at every bloody turn I upset you. So what am I to make of that?”

“It was not so, before you knew I wanted you.”

Frustrated all over again, Alistair sits awkwardly across from Daylen, bending his knees too. The floor is hard, but somehow it seems fitting they must be so low to even have this discussion. “But you always knew.”

A faint smile brushes Daylen’s lips. They may be terrible, but they are glorious too. “It’s not the same. You know it’s not.”

Alistair creeps forward on his hands and knees. There’s a little bit of guilt kissing away Daylen’s smile, coaxing his response. 

“Your magic.” At first Alistair thinks Daylen is to reject him, send him away, put him on a pin and study him under his micro-scope like a strange and terrifying substance. But he doesn’t. Instead he kisses at Alistair’s cheek, then a bit closer, the corner of his mouth. His voice is unshakably sad, “Your magic.”

The hitch of Daylen’s breath is so loud, Alistair worries for a moment he’s gone deaf before time ticks forward. He likes this part, he likes Daylen’s offering of himself, his lips, where the speaking stops for a moment only to pick up again, to laugh and say they love each other. This part, Alistair likes.

His advance doesn’t stop until Daylen is on his back, until his more solid body hovers over the mage’s, until Alistair can feel Daylen rolling his hips up, wrapping his legs, begging without words for things Alistair hasn’t been able to give him. He’s not an idiot, Daylen isn’t either. His hand slides into Daylen’s robes, feel for the valleys between his ribs, where more flesh should be, but have stood hollow for a long time. The touches could be innocent, pure. They’re not though, because Daylen’s hips take a different path, the reckless one for which he always pushes when they hold together, where Alistair worries he cannot follow..

“Let me do this,” Alistair has to believe his own words, to not be afraid. 

Grabbing Daylen’s thighs, he pulls them apart so he can slip down the length of his body. He rucks up Daylen’s robes, skimming his fingertips against leather boots, then the inside of his leg. Daylen’s blue veins look so stark under the dusting of bright hair, like they could be pulled away from the flesh as thread, so easily broken.

Alistair works down Daylen’s smalls, presses his hand against his erection, takes it despite hesitation chasing him down to nothing, strokes, though it doesn’t feel quite the same as when he touches himself. It’s the different angle, the different girth, the way Daylen responds, low and needy and almost already wrecked. Always already wrecked. Because they build this up so much. Alistair builds himself up for failure; Daylen as if this is the only way their love can be proven. To hold onto something so fiercely that it crumbles in their hands, evaporates in their mouths. I love you. I love you. 

His lips wrap around the tip of Daylen’s cock, slickens it with his saliva, bobs his head and stops trying to be right. Alistair stops trying to be right, or good, or anything at all. Instead he just listens for Daylen, listens closely when he starts mumbling about love, about destiny, about them. Daylen’s cock is heavy in Alistair’s mouth, and he’s not sure he’s right, but Daylen says he’s good. So good. 

When Daylen comes, fingers tangled in Alistair’s hair, bitter at the back of his throat, he doesn’t look at peace. Alistair spits onto the floor, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and tries to kiss away the frustrations that still haunt them. 

They say love. Please. Don’t leave. There is no one else. They both mean it. Need it too. 

Alistair eats the knot in his throat, swallows it whole and lets it lay leaden in his stomach. He’s still soft in his breeches. Daylen’s fingers glance against his lips.


	19. A Year or Ten Doesn't Make a Bit of Difference to Shattered Hearts and Mended Songs

Cullen is candle wax between her thighs, warm and malleable, not knowing how dangerous he even is, always too worried about her sharp edges and not his own burn. All that potential directed towards the apex of her sex, the way his fingers thread between hers, his wedding band catches at her skin as it scrapes by, following paths of flesh. Hers doesn't fit the same, too loose around her finger as she thins.

She fists her hands in his hair, pulling his face down to nip at already swollen lips. Grazing the scar at the corner of his mouth, the one she has no tale for. He doesn't tell, she doesn't ask, she thinks instead of the knots on his chest, the patches of hardened terror from his near death. A year ago? Slightly more. The flesh there is hard, the punctures of claws as they ripped him through. Bone, skin, subjectivity, a mangle of meat.

"Cullen," Sabina gasps.

His hips knock against hers, the hard junctures of their bodies nipping against one another. She wants to chase him from below, as his body covers hers, his cock filling her, she tries to catch him, make him moan. Fingertips ghosting against the places his pulse beats strongest, she can't help but bite her fingernails into his arms as he tilts her hips just so, as he thrusts into her whispering half-truths about their love. That it may sustain them. But this love only holds as long as they keep their ends of their bargains. Everything has conditions.

She winds and winds around his movements, the thickness of his cock keeping her open, vulnerable. But it’s fine, they’re fine. Sabina’s head rests against the pillow, it smells sweetly of her hair, their sweat. His arms at either side of her head, the strain there as he thrusts into her, again and again until she springs forward, her legs lashing as she comes, letting go of the control to which she clings so tightly. Golden hairs on his arms prick as his skin responds to her hands sweeping against it, trying to hold on to something, to keep from crashing.

Spilling into her, Cullen gasps against her ear, his hair, damp with sweat, pressing to her face. Litanies of his love that have always come so freely from his lips, even when she would hesitate. Cullen, sweet Cullen, who would throw himself down for a woman he barely knew, who threw himself for her, who has stayed as the others have left.

Though she would not lie, call herself good, she wants to quiet his nightmares, to make him whole. Sabina wishes to care for him, as best she can, despite her faults. Kissing at his shoulder, she tells him how weak she is for him, despite her best efforts, she presses every word of it against his body so he cannot parse the sounds.

\--

Sabina holds Rufus in her arms perhaps longer than she should, letting him try to grasp at one of her manicured fingers on the Anchored hand. She uses her right to support his increasing weight. He grows so fast. Watching his face intently, she tries to figure if he understands anything at all. That she is leaving, that the reason she’s leaving is important, for both her and his father. That she’ll be back, at least, that she should be back. The daggers against her spine feel heavier than they should, the edges somehow sharper.

Cullen, fully geared as well, sword at his hip and shield at his back, reaches for Rufus. She hands him over with little fuss, watching her husband dote on their child, how complete his enamoration is. She wonders if she looks the same when she holds him? Perhaps not. It’s a strange construction, one she’s still getting used to, that she would miss this, if they do not return.

But she shakes the mere idea of it away. They are going to the Fade to better live in the present, not to die. Dying has not part of the courses they chart. She flexes her left hand, letting the glow seep out to her fingertips, climb in weaving tendrils up her wrist. Her control of it now is quite masterful, something she has worked on diligently, to keep her unwelcomed guest at bay. With no rifts left to close, her hand languishes as a forgotten artifact of a vivid world. It is a casualty of a recent war, something to mourn.

In Cullen’s arms, Rufus looks so small. She realizes quite suddenly that he is small, despite his growth. There is something painful in the bluntness of his vulnerability.

“We need to go,” she presses her hand against Cullen’s shoulder, smells Rufus’ hair.

Amell and Anders stand ready, a vial in Anders’ hand. The potion that Amell believes will allow Anders to walk in the Fade as himself, which will cage Justice for long enough to break through the Veil. It is untested. For all they know, no one will be going to the Fade today. Justice may stop them all.

Her hand does not waver, instead holding firm against Cullen’s armor. They both hesitate to go. But in time Cullen lets Cassia take hold of Rufus. Sabina mimes a smile. At the very least, Sera is there as well, bouncing on her feet and insisting that everything will be fine, better than fine, great! They’ll take good care of little Rufus. It is the precise definition of ‘good’ that causes Sabina anguish.

“Warden Amell, are you ready?”

Amell inclines his head in assent. Beside him, Anders drinks his potion down to the last drop, wincing at the end from the flavor. It isn’t supposed to take any time at all to work.

In an open clearing just outside of Skyhold, Sabina tears open the Veil, so carefully patched together stitch by stitch with her own hand. But this time she uses the Anchor to render as easily as she could with her blades through skin. The air tears, inching from the ground upwards until it is open, until she can feel the Fade coming to meet them, crying in agony that is has missed them, missed her. Won’t she please come home? Inside it will be safe, sacred.

It scares her. But she waits as Cullen steps through first, his shield leading. He looks back, to her, then further to their son. And he is gone. Daylen next, then Anders. Sera keeps her bow drawn, in case any creepy-crawlies decide to burst through into their side of existence. But none come.

Sabina steps through the Veil. On the other side she shivers as her demons latch. But she is really never alone.

Inside the Fade smells sour, pricking at her nostrils. The light of it almost hurts her eyes, alternating with waves of darkness as a false sky spins above them. At her hand, the Anchor will not settle despite her attempts to control. For all her practice gaining mastery of it, here it will always be askew, pulled by forces she cannot hope to control.

She is not the only abomination.

The blue lines of possession creep up the line of Anders’ neck, threatening to blot out his identity, to turn him into other-than-man. Justice deindividualizes. Sabina can see how he fights it, swallows down the Spirit he joined with in a moment of desperation he still tries to pass as rational decision. That he regrets his melding, Anders will never admit to, but the way he chokes on the bleeding of the bodiless Spirit, Sabina thinks he must.

To watch Anders trying to maintain control feels too intimate, too personal, so Sabina looks away.

The floor of the Fade is too soft, too forgiving to be entirely comfortable. Her boots sink as she steps forward. There is nothing but emptiness on the horizon, dotted with ragged cliffs, yes, but somehow the jagged interruptions make the Fade seem all the more empty. Even in her dreams, torturously repetitive as they are, the Fade seems too hollow for her liking, other than the heavy presence at her back. She can never get behind it, try as she might.

“Commander, lead,” she instructs. Just because they cannot yet see the demons, does not mean that they are not there.

Cullen’s eyes fall to her for a moment, he clenches his jaw before turning away. Picking a direction, he leads. It is not as if any of them know where they are going in a precise sense. To Neria, to Hawke, but where that is, they cannot tell. Sabina cannot hear Hawke. She would not recognize Neria Surana. So she stays at Cullen’s back, letting the more vulnerable mages trail behind. Darting her eyes between spaces, calculating paths that enemies may take, the only place she cannot look is to Anders.

It does not take long for the minor demons to find them, little, horrid things nipping at their heels as they walk, as their feet sink. Daylen riddles them with sparks, causing them to seize and stutter. When they are frozen, chained lightning short-circuiting their bodies, Sabina tosses off vials of poison that make them wither. Tiny as they are, there is little Cullen can do to defend them, so they simply focus on eradication. Exoskeletoned bodies crunch under her boots.

“This is so unlike dreaming,” Cullen sheaths his sword before wiping the sweat from his brow. “Was it like this at Adamant?”

Sabina nods, “Long stretches of nothing, but everything is so...textured.” There is not another way to describe it, the embodied feeling that even surpases their side of the Veil, the quality that makes her question which side she is supposed to walk. Like this is the correct side, where all emotional intensity lies. “Very unlike dreaming.”

They push further, but further to what, into what, none of them can articulate. Only they do not stand where they began, their footprints behind them pressed into the ground, marking where they have been, the monotony of cliffs and valleys making it otherwise difficult to keep their barings.

“We can’t just aimlessly-”

Ahead of her, Cullen stumbles. She reaches forward to steady him, but he slips through her fingertips. Disappearing as if he never were, before flickering back into solid existence. That is very much like a dream, and therefore wrong. The material Fade was not like this last time.

“This is wrong,” she doesn’t intend for uncertainty to creep into her voice. When she turns back to assure the safety of the mages behind her, it is not them her eyes settle on, but beyond. A tangle of Red Lyrium and flesh that did not stand there before. A tableau of injury, decimation, contamination. Her mouth falls open. Amell is the first to turn, to see it as well.

“Maker,” he gasps, running towards the pyre.

Though Sabina still cannot hold her eyes on Anders for long, she catches the sound of his footfall, sees him overtake Amell with strides that are desperate instead of merely hurried.

“Cullen, Cullen what is this?” They follow behind, unable to catch up with Anders, to reach her before he does.

The spike of Red Lyrium rises above their heads, jagged and cruel. Marian Hawke impaled upon it, black hair falling over her open blue eyes, unmoving. Naked, vulnerable. A sliver pierces her throat, robs her voice, another through her chest, splitting her open. She is quiet. Sabina cannot hear her.

“What is this?” When no one answers her question, Sabina repeats it louder. “Is this Hawke?”

Quite suddenly the body breathes sharply, its chest rising in a labored, strangled gasp. Anders makes no move to care for her. She must be an illusion, then.

When Amell turns his head, Sabina sees his eyes, the left black, corrupted beyond repair, the right white, milky. A moment ago they were blue, now they are both ruined.

“It’s not her, she doesn’t have my eyes.”

Sabina pulls her daggers from her back, “What is wrong with you, Amell?”

“I’ve seen this before,” Cullen reaches for Amell, taking his cheek in one hand, tilting the Hero’s head from side to side to better see. “In a dream Daylen and I shared.” He pulls back. “Their eyes didn’t match then either. It’s just an illusion.”

“An illusion that gets us no closer to Hawke.”

Anders remains silent, staring ahead at the monument.

Amell bites his lip, “In our dream, it was Neria, a version of her, who conjured the Marian with the wrong eyes.”

“So she may have made this one as well?” Marian asks.

Nearly in sync, Cullen and Amell nod. At least this is a place to start. An image that should not be, that never really was. Marian Hawke sacrificed on a throne of lyrium. Forever silenced.

“How did I save her?” Anders words are harsh, his rapid movements as well. He paces before the illusionary Hawke. “At the Gallows, how did I save her?”

The answer seems so simple, straightforward. Of Anders skill as a healer, no one has ever questioned. He is peerless.

“She has no scars on her chest. Knight-Commander Meredith pierced her, but with no scar left behind. How did I do it?” He kneels before the false-Hawke, taking her limp, mangled hand in his. His face remains impassive.

“You came for me,” behind them, a voice Sabina does not recognize. One clearly unaccustomed to speech. A shy woman, hidden away from a world at Kinloch Hold. Who died because she was too frail to resist. Neria. Sabina does not recognize the voice, or the narrow frame that throws itself into Cullen, yearning to be held. Cullen’s arms close around her, but he says nothing, his body holding stiff, unsure. “Cullen you came for me, I’ve waited.”

It is only then that Sabina realizes Cullen’s sword runs through her slim body to the hilt. She had not seen him move for his sword. There was no time for him to move for it. The blade is bloodless, but traverses her body fully. Like an insect on a pin. One of Amell’s specimens for dissection. How cruel.

“Neria,” Amell starts, “you said you would take us to Marian, if I brought Cullen and myself, you would take us to Marian Hawke.”

Cullen’s wrist twists, turning the blade bit by bit inside Neria’s body. She shows no signs of pain though the blade transforms, creaking, thickening until it is Red.

“I killed you,” Cullen whispers into Neria's hair, full of sorrow and pain. “When you weren’t strong enough. I killed you.” Something he had forgotten, but nonetheless screamed in his dreams, now remembered.

Neria’s head throws back as if she is in ecstasy, as if the sword in her gut is Cullen’s cock in her cunt. She hisses her pleasure, kisses him so thoroughly that it makes Sabina’s stomach drop. Cullen does not break apart their mouths, even as he pulls the sword from her torso. As it exits Neria’s body, shards of Red Lyrium drop to the ground, implanting themselves into the floor of the Fade.

“Neria!” Amell shouts, “you promised!”

Her blue eyes are ringed red, she bares her teeth, snapping her retort. “He promised to protect me! You said I would live! What promises you two keep? Still the golden boys of Kinloch Hold. While all the others writhed, died, only you lived. And why?”

Cullen’s arms tighten about her waist, his sword discarded on the ground. Neria clings just as fiercely, tangling her fingers in Cullen’s hair, looking into his eyes and whispering, “I forgive you, I forgive. You came.”

“Do you?” Cullen asks with such sincerity it breaks Sabina’s heart. He holds her because of his failures, the man he once was who, despite his best efforts, he will never be able to change. His embrace has nothing to do with his lusts. Fingers trace from the small of her back up to Neria’s open wound. He penetrates her, fingers slipping into her fluttering chest.

A smile curls at her pink lips, “Never.”

Hawke screams.

With the clatter, Cullen throws Neria away, reaching instead for his sword. It is as if a daze has been broken around them, a spell dissipated. Neira smiles, her fingers in front of her face.

“I promised to bring her. And I have.”

Hawke’s broken-doll limbs snap into place with cruel pops, splintering to be reshaped. Her screams are so loud, so piercing as her body contorts, that it takes a moment for Sabina to register the second sound, the singing in her ears. So sharp, so shrill. In the agony of it Sabina falls to the ground. She can hear Hawke's heartbeat thudding in her ears, the harsh, steady pattern of it clicking together. The stones in Anders' hands.

Hawke is suspended in the air above them like a marionette. Neria with her strings.

Hawke’s eyes are blue, alive, open. When Sabina looks to Amell, his are the same. They match.

“It’s her.”

While her too-thin body mends, Hawke wails. She cries out for Anders. Please Please Anders. Her hands claw for him, just out of reach. Anders cannot reach her, levitating above the ground as she is. Instead, he directs his anger to the laughing Neria.

“Let her go!” Anders aims his fire at Neria, but it glances away without singeing her skin in the slightest. Instead, the flames lick down the sides of her body, dissipating as it hits the floor. Her chest remains hollow, open, empty.

Hawke fights the invisible magic that snaps her body towards the demon, so quickly it could have broken her neck. She is a demon, a Not-Neria, that contorts herself, that fuses her body around Hawke’s as she approaches, winds the red-hot magma of its rage around her emaciated frame.

The demon swallows her up, slicking its body around Hawke’s, consuming it, breaking down what is left. But her eyes, alive, terrified, remain, peering out from the red slush of rage.

“Cullen!” Sabina shouts. They must fight it. The waves of fire emanating from the demon necessitate it. Gripping her daggers, tilting them to dance, Sabina prepares.

Cullen steps forward, shield drawn. When she is certain he will defend the mages, she drops her powder and shimmers from sight to get behind the demon. Leading with a shield bash, Cullen knocks the demon back, directly into Sabina’s drawn blades. It is impossible to tell where Marian sits inside the rage demon, or if she is even recoverable. The fire may be burning her, may already have turned to her ash. From behind, Sabina cannot see her eyes. But she does catch the stream of ice that pock-marks the demon, from Anders and Amell both. They cast over and over, their spells somewhat weaker than those of their natural elements.

Pulling her blades from its back, Sabina must dodge the oncoming attack. She hit too hard, too quickly, and now it wants her instead of Cullen. Out of sight, she waits for Cullen to take control again, to taunt the demon back towards him before it can refocus on a mage. Sabina waits, she breathes, then dashes, drawing one blade against its side, stabbing the other into its back as she circles it, always on the balls of her feet, quicker than it would ever catch her.

Ice rains on the demon, caking on Sabina’s blades as well, clinging to her eyelashes because she stands too close. But she must be close to be effective. She cannot shudder or risk being seen. So Sabina holds in place, twisting her blades while the cold creeps. Stepping aside when the demon threatens to turn. She weaves in and out of the battle while Cullen holds focus. There isn’t the time to doubt. They must destroy it. She and Cullen, they are not builders, to think of themselves as such is a lie. While their justifications may differ, they are both killers by necessity. The realization is sharp.

Rage defeated melts against the floor of the Fade, thinning down to nothing, leaving the heap of Marian Hawke behind, her body slickly wet, breaths shallow. With her eyes closed, she looks almost at peace.

Anders rushes to tend to her, pulling her against his chest and casting with a quiet resolve. Whispering into her hair, he wraps them both in a blanket of blue, encasing them from the green of the Fade.

Something remains. A wisp of something not-a-demon. The thing that may have once been authentically Neria. Sabina can feel it press against her.

‘You smell like him.’

“Yes.” No matter where she looks, she cannot see it. Sabina is a master at deception, but this is something else. A thing which is not a thing.

‘Do you love him?’

“Can you not tell?” she asks.

“Sabina?” Cullen steps towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She shakes her head, unsure if she is alright or not. Hawke has stopped singing so loudly. The voice she hears is not nearly as invasive, if it is more disturbing.

‘I can tell he doesn’t love me anymore.’

“You’ve been dead a long time.”

‘Yes.’

There is a finality to her last word. Shifting from sound to vision, Neria appears before them. Cullen, Amell, herself. Anders remains wrapped around Marian, clinging to her as she clings to life, they must hurry.

Neria’s apparition says nothing. Amell says that he is sorry. For what, Sabina doesn’t know. The ghost cannot speak, only leave.

They must leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting quite to the end. Comments and kudos are always very much appreciated. Also [tumblr plug](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com) where I talk fic and other garbage.


	20. Hello Mother, Father, Unresolved Tensions all Around I See

Cullen knocks, waiting for Anders to open the door. If the mage chooses to keep it closed, that is his prerogative. Standing at attention, with his hands behind his back, Cullen waits.

The door cracks open, then more fully swings when Anders sees that it is him. He nods and steps out of the room, closing the door behind him. Not unexpected, given how precious its occupant is to Anders.

“Yes?” Anders asks. There is still a bit of white-blue glow at his wrists which fades as they speak.

Cullen wants to ask after Marian directly, but the question seems too intrusive. “Is there anything you need?” The safer query. He may learn something or nothing, in either case he may be of use. 

Anders holds his eyes. They are clear amber, without the acute sorrow that haunted them for so long. Perhaps there is anxiety there, yes, a low grade worry, but Anders’ period of mourning has ended. “No, no, one of Leliana’s brings the vials, they are enough.”

His lower lip is stained blue. Cullen tries not to linger on it for too long. Even now, it induces an ache that will not properly settle. He is clean, but it is never clean enough. The nature of lyrium makes it impossible. Sometimes it feels as if they are a class apart, those who have drank, from those who have not. No matter the length of his sobriety, he will always belong to the former. The urge does not wane with time, this poison on Thedas that they nonetheless rely upon. 

Cullen does not even realize that he has been staring. 

“Marian will be...the Red Lyrium inside her can be broken up, but it is laborious to do so. I do what I can each day. But she is still not eating, even when she is awake, which is rarely.”

Merely nodding, Cullen tries not to interrupt. Anders runs his hand down his face, the circles around his eyes deep purple. 

“I do not think she remembers me.”

“What?” That seems impossible. “She recognized you immediately in the Fade.”

Shaking his head, Anders explains, “she says my name, constantly, but I do not think she knows why, it is not attached to anything. The name has no referent.” He pauses, when Cullen has nothing to offer, he continues. Should Cullen have something to offer? All he feels is heavy disbelief, sorrow if it is true. “I am more concerned at the moment with how thin she is. My wish is for her to eat...She is the only thing in this world worth saving. If it is at my expense, so be it.”

There isn’t anything more to discuss, Cullen is not adept at providing comfort to other men. He doubts Anders would be will to receive such gestures. Slipping back behind the door, Anders disappears from sight. Cullen barely gets out that if Anders needs anything, he has only to ask.

\--

Rufus grabs at Cullen’s hair, trying to take away curls in tiny fistfuls. But his fingers won’t stay flexed just so, instead the strands slip through. Cullen smiles, keeps his son held up high enough in his arms that he can try again to make purchase. His unwavering tenacity in the endeavor makes Cullen’s heart ache is the most beautiful of ways. Again and again Rufus tries, with his pink mouth open wide. 

When the song inside of Rufus becomes too loud to bear, Cullen holds him close to his chest, trying to drown out the ringing with the patter of his breathing, the pump of his heart. All of the outward signs of Rufus’ vitality are that of a healthy child. Anders can find nothing wrong, Daylen can detect only the faintest contamination. But he sounds like something foreign to this world. Cullen wonders what his voice will sound like when it is more than garbled baby talk.

As the song inside of Rufus quiets, grows thin and tinny, Cullen turns him a bit so he can look at his mother, dressed in battle leathers and training with her daggers. Sabina says that she must be fit again, that she was too slow in the Fade. Cullen detected nothing of the sort, that she was as agile as ever, her steps as sure even as the ground sank beneath her feet. 

She slices deep at the dummy, tumbling away before again springing forward and impaling the blades. The wood and straw figure falls over and she jumps atop it, retrieving her weapons from the false-corpse. Sheathing them, she turns to Cullen, her face sweaty and her curls clinging to her forehead where they have come loose from her ponytail. Straw sticks to her hair, flaxen gold against waves of dark. Sabina does not reach to take Rufus, but rubs his back with one hand.

“Are you packed?” she asks.

Cullen nods. “You’re sure we cannot get out of this?”

“I’ve delayed your presentation as long as I could manage. Between Coryphaeus and my pregnancy, my parents have bought that we could not travel. But now that Cassia has written to them, they know well enough that the time exists for us to visit Ostwick. The party is as much for us as anything else.”

Sabina still speaks of her sister as if she were a stranger. When she was a stranger, Sabina spoke of her as her greatest friend. 

“I apologize in advance for anything I do that may embarrass you.” Cullen shifts Rufus higher in his arms, so he is at eye level with Sabina. His hand now tries to curl around her extended finger. “I’m afraid I still have not received proper diplomatic training.”

Her smile shifts to a low laugh. “I will embarrass us enough for the both of us, I assure you.”

\--

The collar of his dark dress tunic itches. The pearl of the white buttons catches the light in a way that makes him nervous, at once modest and expensive. Ostwick is quite like that.

At the Winter Palace, at least Cullen could awkwardly scoff at the outward ostentatiousness of Orleasian style, so utterly foreign to his modest upbringing in Ferelden. Mocking the open displays of wealth and status common in Orlais is expected of him, expected of any man of Ferelden stock. Orleanians are always too much. Ostwick presents Cullen with a different problem. 

The subdued, ever-present nature of Trevelyan wealth terrifies him. At Skyhold, it is easy enough for him to forget that Sabina was raised around expensive things. She brought expensive things to Skyhold, shipped in crates she never fully unpacked, only picking and choosing the things she needed as they became relevant. Here, in her childhood home, he sleeps in its bed, against its sheets, keeping the smell of it in his nostrils. Sabina is noble, nothing about being Inquisitor can change that. The change in his name, exchanging his father’s for hers, will never make him the same.

Sabina enters from the attached bathroom. They are staying in guest quarters, citing that her childhood room is too small. Her parents have not been in to see them, though they were received last night by a cousin, tall and blue-eyed, not looking one bit like Sabina. She holds Rufus at her hip, her pleated, dark purple gown skimming against the floor, covering still-bare feet. Her shoulders exposed, as seems to be the Marcher style, looks somehow scandalous with so much skin visible. The engagement pendant drops low between her breasts, she still wears it though they have been married over a year. Her hair has been heated straight. 

His impulse is to throw a shawl about her shoulders, cover the jut of her collarbones and keep them to himself but she would certainly protest that it would crush the bow at her neck that frames her head quite prettily. 

“You look good,” she smiles at him, using one hand to tease apart the curls he had battled so hard to try and tame. “You look better now.”

“I thought you wanted me to look proper? To make a good impression?” There is no use trying to articulate his fears, he doubts Sabina could quite understand them. This is where she is natural, though she may deny it.

“You are an excessively attractive Southerner. Your impression will be made, regardless of how your hair sits.” She kisses him ever so briefly at the scarred corner of his lip.

She passes him Rufus so she may slip on her shoes, flat and simple, but well-made, like everything else. The light colored gloves are last, reaching quite to her elbows and Cullen realizes that he has seen her like this before. Neria showed him.

Rufus squirms in his arms making babble, so Cullen speaks back. Asking him if he thinks his mother is beautiful? Because Cullen certainly does. And that when they return to Skyhold, he can have all his toys back, the big stuffed nug with too-pink ears, and the blocks that his hands will soon grow into. When he is older yet, he will teach him to hold a shield and sword, but his mother will teach him to never be afraid.

\--

He cannot remember the name of a single man or woman to whom he is introduced, save for one. And that name he only remembers because he knows the woman, templar from the Ostwick Circle named Marka who likes wine as much as she needs lyrium, who several times at the Gallows, after ensuring the safe transfer of mages, tried to slip her hand under Cullen's chestplate, not realizing that her short-nailed fingers wouldn't fit. Cullen always brushed her off, more embarrassed for Marka's clumsy tactics at wooing than concerned about his own integrity. But that the inebriated templar is clearly a relation of Sabina's is somewhat horrifying. Cullen purses his lips and looks away. When Marka catches his eye, Cullen considers jumping behind a pillar for cover, but Maker that would be even worse. Would that be worse? Could he just run? Throw himself off the balcony?

"I know you?" Marka slurs, one hand already against Cullen's chest. At his side, Sabina smirks but says nothing. Traitor. 

"Ah, no, not when you are sober, at least." Cullen curses himself for not showing better social graces.

Marka laughs, "then I should certainly know you at present!"

Finally interceding, Sabina calls her dear cousin, kisses her on one cheek. But Marka cannot remember Sabina’s name either. When a silver tray passes with little delicacies piled high, Marka's attention turns.

"So, do you know her?" Sabina asks, one of her fingers in Rufus' mouth.

"From the Order, she is....very friendly when drunk."

Sabina tilts her head to one side. "You're friendly always."

Cullen rolls his eyes at her remark. "I mean it, she was always quite interested in me after several drinks, but I'm not sure we've ever exchanged words while she wasn't intoxicated."

"So...what is her name? I've quite forgotten."

Cullen stares at his wife in quiet disbelief. 

The Trevelyan estate is not at all like the Winter Palace, where he could let the indifference show in stark lines across his face. These are Sabina’s relatives, extended as they are, dressed in restrained finery and appraising him as suitable or not to enter into their family. Little matter that he has already appropriated their name. He feels very much under examination. He is very much not suitable. It makes his collar feel even tighter as his adam’s apple bobs against it with each swallow. 

Sabina remains close to his side, trying to make up for his awkward gaps in conversation. Weaving together stories that include him, but do not necessitate his joining in on the conversation, Sabina keeps her relations at bay best she can. None of her tales reveal too much, slices of life from Skyhold mostly, inane chatter about rebuilding that has been long completed. The stark-white teeth of their conversation partner shows as his lips curl around them. Sabina presses gently at his shoulder, calls him ‘Dear uncle,’ and excuses them.

Once away from the white-toothed uncle, Sabina sighs that she needs wine. Marka comes up behind Cullen and tousles his hair before leaving again, laughing all the while.

Cullen offers to take Rufus from Sabina's hip with his outstretched hands. He’s been quiet, both to others and to them, seemingly amused with the changing waves of color around him. 

Sabina shakes her head, “nothing offends my family more than the fact we did not leave him with the nursemaid.” She passes Rufus to him. Cullen could not imagine having left Rufus behind, even if it was only in the nursery down the hall, where apparently at least two other little ones are being tended to by nannies. 

“Why?”

Plucking a glass of white from a passing serving tray, Sabina crosses one arm over her chest before sipping. “It is quite...quaint of us to be such attentive parents. That is all.”

By saying quaint, she is not saying ‘common,’ Cullen knows well enough. 

“Oh,” she drinks down half the glass quickly, in a solid gulp that hangs in her throat. “My parents have arrived.” Running her fingers down Rufus’ back, Sabina’s dark eyes look uncertain. She pecks at the back of his head, rubbing the trace of lipstick away.

Cullen keeps his eyes ahead, holding onto their son and trying to settle the uneasiness in his gut. A man of thirty-three and still nervous as if he were sixteen. But he didn’t encounter this scenario at sixteen, meeting a woman’s parents, meeting the parents of a woman he loves so intensely, married, fathered a child with already. The closest he's ever been is Marian Hawke screaming in his face that he was never to lay a finger on her sister again while Kirkwall lay in tatters. So, yes, such encounters have typically not gone well for him.

“Mother, father.” Sabina hugs each one of them in turn. “This is Cullen, and Rufus.”

Bann Trevelyan, fair skinned, broad-shouldered, with gray hair and a still-graying beard, stands just taller than Cullen, offering his hand. Cullen shifts Rufus in his arms to be able to take the hand and shake it firmly. Sabina’s father smiles slightly, says he is glad to finally meet Cullen, he’s heard so much, all good. 

“I’m honored to finally meet you both,” he hopes that his voice sounds natural, not terrified. 

“And what a well-behaved baby,” Lady Trevelyan barely acknowledges Cullen’s presence, instead her attention fixed on Rufus. In many ways, she looks very much like Sabina, but shorter, more delicate. Her long black hair cascades down her back, pin-straight, her lips bright red. She is darker-skinned than Sabina, yes, but so expertly done up that the way the light catches at her cheekbones is nearly blinding. 

“Yes, he’s been quiet all evening,” Sabina offers. She clutches her glass so tightly Cullen is afraid it may shatter in her hand. He can make out how the pads of her fingers press with overwhelming pressure.

“We were so pleased to hear of your marriage,” Bann Trevelyan starts. He seems aimable enough, keeping conversation up even though Cullen has not said a word more. “It is good that Sabina is happy.”

“Quite happy.” Having finished her wine, Sabina passes the glass to an elven servant who walks by.

“The Inquisition has treated you both well, I assume?” He ignores Sabina’s interjection, looking instead to Cullen to answer.

“It is noble work, Ser,” Cullen treads carefully, not revealing more than Sabina would want of him.

As they speak, Lady Trevelyan stays quiet, occasionally waving to Rufus as his gaze turns to her. Otherwise, she seems uninterested in either her daughter or Cullen. 

“Our family has always strived to serve the Chantry to the best of our ability and fortunes.”

Sabina’s bristling is so pronounced that her father cannot have missed it. 

“It is excellent that Sabina has finally started along her path of service.”

The statement strikes Cullen as profoundly odd. To say Sabina has only begun to serve is a gross inaccuracy. Yes, there is certainly more to be done, Sabina is driven to do more, even with Coryphaeus defeated. And the Inquisition has already turned to the task of aiding rebuilding efforts, promoting charity. She has done much more than merely started. That her parents do not acknowledge as much is strange indeed.

“She is strong willed. Certainly, Cullen, you will be good for her. May you walk in the Maker’s light.” 

Cullen cannot begin to fathom what his response to Bann Trevelyan should be, he can only think to complement Sabina, as she is eerily quiet. So odd for her. “Sabina is a remarkable woman. I am very lucky.”

Bann Trevelyan waves him off, invites them both to breakfast in the morning before excusing himself. From somewhere, Sabina has procured a second glass of wine, but she does not drink. She simply holds it, starting at her father's back until it vanishes.

Marka's hand grazes against the small of Cullen’s back as she whisks by. Sabina fails to comment.

\--

In the guest quarters, Sabina puts Rufus to bed. As he drifts to sleep, he grows quiet in Cullen's head. They have not yet had time to undress, still done-up for the party. Near her forehead, Sabina's hair has begun to curl.

It is not a question he wishes to ask. But Sabina spent two years without asking after his dreams. In a way, this is the same. He does not want to walk the same path twice, not in the same way.

"Sabina, you never speak of your parents. Not really."

She takes his hand in her gloved one, the satin against his bare palm. "Walk with me."

They leave Rufus quiet in his bassinet. If Sabina believes him safe alone, he will defer to her. Were he to wake, they would be likely to hear.

She leads him down the hall, around a corner. The windows along the corridor are massive. In the day, they would let the sun in. Their heels click against the floor.

Cullen does realize to where she leads him. Another bedroom, hers. It is filled with lovely objects, a vanity table of dark, heavy wood, a picture frame mirror, brushes with pearl handles, little gilded pots for her cosmetics. It is all very lavish. The little things of a rich girl.

They stand in her childhood room, filled with lovely objects, and Cullen has seen this before, Neria showed him.

"I want to believe they loved me. That this was the only way they could show me how much." She laughs, like glass already broken. "Anything I wanted, I could have. Anything but my sister. Then-" She takes a puff from one of the compacts, dusted with fine powder. Pursing her lips, she blows against it, sending up a cloud of dust. "Poof! I was gone too."

He does not know if she wishes to be touched. 

"They never cut me off. From my accounts, I mean. I wanted to believe they loved me."

"Just because they are not warm, does not mean that they do not love you."

Her cool hand rests against his cheek. He cannot help but lean into it.

"No, but it does not change the fact they wish me to be someone different." 

Her fingers shift from his face to his neck. Lower still to the top button of his tunic. With her dexterity it is little trouble for her to work it open with one hand.

"You are the Inquisitor. You closed the Breach. You saved Thedas. Who could they possibly want you to be?"

With both hands now she opens his tunic, leaving it on his shoulders. She runs her mouth against his neck, biting sharply just low enough to hide in their waking hours. 

"They wanted me to be good. To be kind." She licks at the wound she has made.

His arms wrap around her waist, pulling her body against his. "You are."

"Don't lie to me, Cullen. I need," her fingers tighten in the fabric of his tunic. "I need you to love me, though I am not good."

“What is it you wish to be?” he asks.

“Right.”

Nodding against her, he blows air against the shell of her ear. 

“I love you.”

Her gloved hands press against his shoulders until he kneels before her, his knuckles scraping against the floorboards, slipping under the hem of her dress. Cullen lifts the dark fabric, revealing her ankles, her shins, her thighs. One hand he presses against her sex, damp through the fabric of her smallclothes. Just higher lies the flat of her stomach, not quite as it was before she bore their child, but he thinks it all the more beautiful for it. 

“Let me have you?” he asks. 

Her reply, “yes.”

Pulling down her smalls to her ankles, he presses his mouth against her as quickly and as fiercely as he can, parting her folds with his fingers. His nose buried in dark curls, her legs parting just slightly, the scrap of fabric at her feet prevents her from moving any further. He must keep her from falling.

She breathes his name, ‘Cullen, Cullen, love,’ hands against the back of his head. Licking against her core, Cullen slides two fingers into her, thrusting and curling until she is weak, until her knees start to bend and she mewls for him. Sweet words of devotion. She is devoted to nothing else but him, to them. To the idea that they could care for one another. A precious thing to earn the devotion of a heretic.

The fabric of her dress falls against his skin. 

Having freed herself of the smalls around her feet, kicking them away, she throws one leg over his shoulder, using the wall behind them to support the rest of her weight. Even off balance as she is, she grinds against his face, spreads her legs for him. Her head lands against the wall with a dull thud.

She comes in a spasm, twitching around his fingers, against his mouth. Cullen keeps the flat of his tongue against her clit, teasing her until the torture of it makes her writhe and she pushes away his head, gasping down air and cursing him for being too much. They are always too much. He smiles and kisses below her navel. 

“I will always be too much, if it is what you desire?”

Taking his hand, Sabina slides his wet fingers into her mouth, tasting herself off of his flesh. 

“Yes.”

His hands wrap around her hips, take her to bed. Her hair spreads out behind her head.

How vulgar, to take her in her childhood bed, though it is large enough for three adults. 

Perhaps it would be unwise for them to undress. Instead he works his cock from his trousers, strokes it once, twice, but he is already painfully hard. He wants her, fiercely. In a possessive twinge, he wants his need for her to blot out all the lovers who have preceded him. No, they do not matter, not in any concrete sense. But in this moment, he wishes to be more.

With her skirts rucked up around her waist, he holds her thighs tight in bare hands, pulling her apart. He slides his cock to the hilt into her wet center. He punctuates the thrust with his hips against hers, the knock of bone on bone. Holding his weight above her, he realizes both his strength and her immense faith in him. That he will never harm her. He won’t.

Untying the bow at the back of her neck, the front of her dress comes apart, thicky pleated bands of silk falling apart like a flower. She pushes the tendrils away herself, exposing her breasts. The whole of her fine dress bunches against her waist, the rest of her skin exposed, slickening as they both sweat. He feels like breaking. 

His fingers bite hard enough against her thighs to bruise, to leave remnants of himself behind. She has never complained. 

Her hands rake against his chest, the scars they share. Even if they may look different, they harken back to the same moment in time, one they would do again, just the same, because they won. They won. They were right. Coryphaeus’ dragon marred them, but they were victorious. 

When he releases her legs from his grip, she grips him instead, wrapping them around his hips, forcing him deeper inside of her. She moans against his ear that he is the one. 

“Only you.” 

Cullen comes as much from her admission as from the sensation of her cunt constricting around his cock. She swallows down his moan, keeping their lips locked together, her hands on the side of his face. The love she has such trouble articulating is plain enough in her open eyes. 

\--

An elven servant knocks at their door in the early hours of the morning. At his side stands an Inquisition agent, a sealed letter in her outstretched hand. 

Cullen takes Rufus in his arms, trying to entertain him as Sabina takes the letter. She waits for the courier and servant to leave before breaking the seal. Tugging at the corner, she pulls the message as if to read it, but only drops it on the desk.

“Darling, what is it?”

Rufus tugs on the sleeve of his dressing gown. 

“Divine Victoria is dead.”

“Sabina,” he feels as if he will vomit, “no. She was your friend.” Frozen, Cullen knows no appropriate reaction.

“I said nothing regarding Cassandra Pentaghast.” Sabina presses her fingers over her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please consider leaving comments/kudos if you have enjoyed this series. Two chapters left to go, Anders pov, Sabina pov.


	21. Drowning

“I cannot bear it any longer.” Daylen’s fingers tap against the doorframe in an erratic pattern. There is no discernible rhythm. “I have to go.”

Anders shakes out his hands, trying to dispel the tightness in his wrists. “And what, you wish for me to try and stop you? I do not have time for this, Daylen.”

Daylen looks away, his nails biting into the wood when the tapping stops. The frown on his face appears almost permanent. How long since he last smiled? “No, of course not. I did not mean to trouble you.”

“What of Alistair, will you take him with you?” 

Though Marian’s condition has improved, Anders does not wish to be away from her for long. When her eyes are open, they still appear very distant. She says his name in a hollow voice. He wants nothing more than to occupy its sound.

“It is Alistair who I cannot bear.”

“You are a coward,” Anders says through gritted teeth. Daylen has always been like this, miming sacrifice where one need not exist. Yes, there may be a curse upon him, all the more reason he should not pile tragedy upon tragedy upon his existing burdens. He already carries enough.

“Yes, of course.”

Daylen is impossible, immune to reason once he has set his mind to something. 

“There are three vials in the Undercroft. The correct initials for each are affixed. Everyone else here has already taken the Cure.”

“Why are you telling me this, Daylen?”

Instead of listening, of answering Anders’ question, Daylen continues along the path he has already chosen. “When Marian is strong enough, there should be no complications.”

Anders does not try again, resigning himself to the fact Daylen will not answer him. “Good luck, my friend.” He only means half of what he says, the other half of his sentence is merely to provide a comfort.

\--

Marian curls up in the center of the wide bed they are meant to share. In reality, Anders has been sleeping upright in the chair in the corner, careful not to disturb her fitful sleep as she struggles to recover. Even like this, a tattered thing, dark hair and translucent skin, Marian is the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.

Pushing herself up on her elbow, blue eyes wide, she says his name. "Anders?"

His heart skips. She speaks so little now, where she used to sing.

"Yes, love?" While he is content to stand at her bedside, he does not creep to take her into his arms, though he aches for it.

"I know you." Though the room is warm, her body shakes from the chill that clings to her yet. Thin fingers creep around the blankets, pulling them tighter around her frame. "I am happier when you are here."

"Yes." It breaks him to pieces every time. She wakes, she speaks, and she does not remember him. Though with the days that have passed, she has learned that the name always on her tongue belongs to him. That the name goes with the body.

When she says nothing more, Anders curls up best he can in the armchair, pressing against his wedding band with his thumb. He will never leave her, even if she cannot remember. At least he offers some measure of comfort.

"Anders?" He misses the way she would taunt and tease.

"Yes, Marian?"

Her voice is very small, but for him it takes up the whole room. "Would you come to bed?"

He freezes. She is so fragile and he is weak for her. "If it is your desire."

Marian makes a noise of assent.

Taking off his outer robes, he makes his way to the bed slowly, as if approaching a terrified animal, but Marian is not afraid. She wouldn’t know how to be. Under the covers he is careful to let her come to him, if that is her wish. Her emaciated body, all jagged edges, scoots towards him until her head rests against his shoulder, a hand at his chest.

"Is this alright?" Marian asks. "It feels right."

It takes a great deal of composure on his part to neither sob nor tear at her nightclothes. The scent of her dark hair, the sound of her breathing washes over him. He wants to take her, possess her, fill up the empty spaces inside her where he belongs, where she occupies the same once-empty places inside him. "Yes, it is right."

"Tell me, please, about us." Her fingers beat a pattern over his heart.

Anders closes his eyes, breathes deeply before beginning. Where is the beginning? The middle? Their end? Must he relive the tragedies that befell her, the tragedies which were his doing as well. "Ten years ago, I was a lonely man. And you were a light against my darkness.”

Her fingers patter against his covered chest, trying to learn contours she once knew. 

“I should have known better, to stay away. But you were so bright, so beautiful and full of life, even with destruction caving down all around you. You held us up when the world pushed down.”

“You speak in riddles, nothing concrete.” Her brow furrows. Her hand stills.

Sighing, Anders tries again. “I hurt you very badly, Marian.”

Fingers tangled in the fabric of his tunic tighten. The breath in her chest flutters, it is enough for him that it comes at all. That she is alive is by the Maker’s will. He wants to press his lips to her forehead, but he resists. They are an avalanche waiting to happen.

“You came to Kirkwall with your mother and your sister. To escape the Blight.” When she shifts against him, he cannot help but tighten his arm around her shoulders. She cannot remember, but he cannot forget. “You came to my clinic, home, needed me for these maps, so you could make your fortune. And you did.” He laughs, “you clawed your way into the nobility. And-and I wanted you, so desperately, from the first time I saw you.” His nose presses to her hair, smelling of her sweat and the starched pillowcases. “I’d follow you anywhere, put myself at your disposal. You deserve nothing less. You deserved more than me.”

“We were lovers then?” She smiles as if she knows without knowing. But Anders doesn’t mistake that for memory. 

He takes her hand in his, raising it before their faces. Her marriage band is gone, probably long gone. The white knuckles on her fingers are too distinct. When they pulled her from the Fade she was little more than skin and bones. She is not much more than that now. His band catches the candlelight, like her eyes do. 

“I was your wife?” The smile hangs. _Was._ Of course. 

Anders voice cracks, he cannot help it. “Yes.”

“Are you sad?” Her other hand bunches in his tunic as well. With gentle grace she rolls atop him, straddling his torso between her thighs. It is such sick pleasure. She will tire out, sitting up with her back slightly hunched. “Please don’t be sad, Anders.”

He takes her hands from his chest, supporting her weight in his arms instead. “Marian, don’t exert yourself.”

She does not answer him, instead leaning forward and pressing their lips together with a fierceness he did not know she could embody in her current state. It feels like her, like his Marian, parting her lips, darting her tongue into his mouth. He forgets himself for a moment, tightening her wrists in his grasp, pulling at her. Wanting to flip her over, penetrate her, come in her, claim her. He barely stops himself, only bringing her to the mattress, holding his body above hers. His arms tremble. This is terrible. Wicked. 

“Marian.”

She breathes with her mouth open, lips parted. With his groin between her thighs, she must feel it. The heat of his cock as it presses against her, thin layers of nightclothes between them. It is not the reaction he wants. Not appropriate. He tries to will it down. But her eyes are wide and clear, her otherwise dull skin flushed in the candlelight, with the pulse that still rages. This is his heart who no longer knows him.

A clicking of stones.

“Anders?” Her hands begin a path of creeping up the hem of his tunic, pressing her knotted joints against his stomach. They’re cold, too cold. Gentle presses against his abdomen that make his cock twitch and his mind ache. This is wrong. She cannot do this.

“Marian, you remember the Chant?”

Smiling again, she begins, her voice nearly singing, “Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow/In their blood the Maker's will is written. Benedictions, 4:11. It was always my favorite.”

He takes her hand, kisses where her ring should be. “I need to tell you how I hurt you. One of the ways, Marian.”

She nods. Anders almost cannot do it.

“I killed the Grand Cleric of Kirkwall. I destroyed the Chantry there with magic. You should have killed me then for what I did to you. I destroyed everything you spent years building. I was never worthy of your love,” his voice races.

“Anders, why?”

“Because the mages of Thedas deserved justice.”

Shaking her head, Marian does not know of what he speaks. There is so much she has forgotten. He will explain everything to her, at his own expense. She will grow to hate him, as she learns, or remembers. Of this, he is sure. Each truth that falls from his lips will push them apart, until she does not want him perched between her legs, their bodies pressed together like this. Until she never wishes to see his face again. As it should have been ten years ago when she first walked into the clinic. Before he lost control of himself, kissed her breathless that first time. Every time as if it would be their last. 

Her hands cradle his face, keeping her eyes locked with his. 

“I cannot hate you. I cannot.”

Exhaling loudly, this center cannot hold. “Marian, I cannot be beside you like this. It is too much.”

“Fuck me, Anders.”

It sounds like her instead of like her ghost. This specter in his bed. The one that weaves through his past just out of reach. 

The avalanche drops. 

He tears at her nightclothes, making a token effort to unlatch the tiny buttons at her breasts. But the ache is too much, her words too welcome. The thread rips. This is wrong. This is wrong, but he strips her bare until she shivers against the sheets. Her ribs stick to her skin like the keys of her flute. Too jagged, too defined. He doesn’t know how to work them in their current state. Instead he presses his mouth over her breast, gripping the other in his palm. He licks her nipple until it is ruddy and dark, until it swells in his mouth. Marian gasps for air, breathing his name. 

“Yes, yes please.”

When he pulls away he is ashamed. Her breast just another in a series of her bruises. The black and blue the Fade left behind. The way she has been utterly wrecked by her lost year. He cannot add to her decimation.

“Anders?” Her hands reach for him, grabbing hold of his tunic. “Anders, please.” There is a note of desperation in her voice.

“You are not well.”

“I will never be well without you.”

She thrusts her hips up against his, spreading her legs and mewling for him. Chanting his name and please in alternating breaths. That she wants him. She may not know why, but she does. She needs him.

“Maker, Anders, why do I need you so?”

Though still in his breeches, her core is wet against him. To look at her and not have her. But she wants to be had. Wants to be devoured. 

He casts a barrier around them, the green of the spell invading her eyes. They widen at the sensation. Pulling away his tunic, he listens for her hesitation and finds none.

“What do you do to me Marian? I am mad without you. I am madder yet with you.” He takes her face between his palms, kissing her, making her yield to him. Thrusting his hips against hers, the barrier is already fading. No bother, he’ll conjure another, paint her skin with his magic. 

He shucks his breeches, the last layer between them. Feeling for her cunt, she is wet for him, even as her legs tremble in the cold. Why is she so cold? Her thighs are thinner now, the fullness at her hips gone. When he grabs her it is only bone. But his cock knows well enough the contours of her sex. He pierces her, swallowing down her slight discomfort, holding her to the mattress, one hand at her hip, another on her shoulder. Does she remember? Just like this. Their consuming of each other. This drowning.

The barrier up, he thrusts into her, nipping at her neck. Her cunt clenches around him, wrecking him on each stroke. The flesh of her thighs slicks against his sides. She tilts her hips to meet him. 

“Anders, Anders, Anders.” A name without referent. Even now.

“Marian.” He’s chasing a woman long gone. But one he still knows the scent of, the laugh of. And the woman beneath him has all those things wrapped up. Presented like a gift. But the box is empty.

She bites at his lip, bites until the skin breaks as she orgasms, twitching and writhing. Gasping, she lets go. Anders grips her thighs, puts his bruises over the ones already there. His hands wrap too far around her legs. He fucks her and fucks her, like it will help a fucking thing. Like it would bring her back. Her body sinks into the mattress with his weight. Black hair splayed around her head, she’s beautiful and broken as she turns her head from side to side, his name still on her lips.

When he comes, slick inside her, she’s so wet, even now. Welcoming his body like he still belongs in it, he does. He belongs with her. Doesn’t deserve it, not in the least. But they belong. 

The barrier comes down and she is crying. Tears in her blue eyes that make him remember that he is terrible. 

“No, Marian, I’m sorry.”

“Anders, who are we? Why can’t I remember?” She covers her face with her hands. 

He’ll tell the story over again. Over and over. Until she hates him. Until she can no longer beg for him to fuck her. Until they can’t pretend this is all okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please consider leaving comments/kudos if you have enjoyed this story. They mean a lot to me.
> 
> One chapter left.


	22. Devotion and Remaking

“I cannot believe what you have done.” Cassandra paces the floor, shakes her head. 

hair is longer now, almost to her shoulders. For weeks she has been confined to this single tower room, with picture-frame windows to let in the light, but high enough from the ground that no one may peer in. Leliana coaxed her, somehow, to assent to dying her hair to better hide her identity. They would have better luck if they could shear down her cheekbones. Sabina thinks her friend looks ridiculous as a blonde, it does not suit her, but it cannot be helped now.

Sitting on Cassandra’s bed, Sabina crosses her legs, paying little attention to the way her dress falls. Privately, like this, it seems inappropriate for her to uphold the image of Inquisitor, just as Cassandra has been stripped of her right to act as the Divine.

“We didn’t exactly have a choice, Cassandra.” She waves her off with a flick of her wrist. “Once the plot was uncovered, Leliana could think of no way to counter it in time. Your enemies would have killed you, had we not intervened.”

Cassandra hisses back, “And what now? I am assumed dead. I cannot hold the position of Divine. What exactly did you accomplish here, Sabina?”

With her patience already wearing thin, Sabina has not the energy to be kind, only truthful. “I saved my friend.”

Cassandra’s face softens. There are many things Sabina knows Cassandra Pentaghast believes in. Grand gestures of love is chief among them. “Sabina.”

She stands, takes Cassandra’s hands in her own, squeezes them as she speaks. “I do not know where we go from here. You know I never wanted you as Divine.”

“You would prefer no Divine at all,” Cassandra says tersely. It is true.

Sabina ignores her interjection. “I do not know where we go from here, only I am glad you are with me to figure out our course.”

Sighing, Cassandra squeezes her hands back.

\--

Cullen raises the vial to the light, trying to see through the opaque fluid, as if he could make out its properties through the refraction of light. An impossible task for certain.

There are three vials left behind by Daylen Amell. “MH,” “ST,” “RT.”

Sabina rolls “RT” between her palms. Their son is too young to take the dosage yet. The fact it was left behind, with Amell’s handwriting so neatly in place, signals clear enough he means never to return. With his loss, Warden Alistair departed as well, stealing one of the Inquisition mounts in the process. A minor inconvenience at most. She will miss the horse more. 

“Are you sure, Sabina?” Cullen asks, her dose still in his palm. “We can still wait.”

She shakes her head. She is ready.

Hawke and Anders are with them in the Undercroft. Dagna is there as well, to oversee the administration of Amell’s wondrous Cure. The dwarf may have not found this Cure, but she pours over the papers left in Amell’s wake, sifting through stacks of it, hastily scribbled down. Amell took no notes anyone saw during the process of experimentation. He must have labored over these complex notes just before his departure. Dagna takes her own observations as well, pages of them already from when Anders and Alistair took their vials months ago. 

Wrapped in a blanket, Marian still looks like death on two legs. Her cheekbones jut at an angle that can only remind Sabina of corpses. Fingers gripping at the fabric, Hawke pulls the wrap around herself, keeping out the cold. Under it, she must be thinner yet. Anders’ hands stay at her body, her shoulder, her hip. His chest presses against her back, holding her up, perhaps. Words whispered in Hawke’s ear, all Sabina can think of is how the Champion may be prone to breaking. 

“Hawke, are you ready?” Sabina takes her vial from Cullen, plucks Hawke’s from the table, and sets down Rufus’. The two elixirs look identical. Indeed, they were tainted the same way, by different men. Sabina has no idea what his name was, only that he is certain to be dead now. Hawke’s contaminator wraps around her like a gauze trying to hold her together by tension alone. 

“Yes,” her voice is yet softer than the ringing she emanates. 

Sabina holds out “MH,” letting Hawke grab at the glass. Nothing may be forced upon her. Hawke’s knotted hand takes the Cure, her fingers cold against Sabina’s palm.

“Sabina,” Cullen calls for her. 

Turning, he catches her in his arms, circling around her waist.Their bodies press together. He is too worried. Yes, there were some minor complications with the prior doses taken by the Wardens, but the worst of them were suffered by Amell himself. There is much less of the taint in her. There is nothing to fear. She swallows down the nothing she fears, allowing Cullen to rub his hand against the small of her back, his palm moving upward along her spine to her neck. 

“I love you,” he says it like it means forever. And she has always wanted to believe. Lips press to the side of her head first, then lower to her lips. If he trusts her, she must provide the same in return, pushing back with her hands and mouth, with everything she has been afraid to lose. She will always be afraid, but that must not mean others know it.

“I love you too.” She buries her hands in the waves of fur at his shoulders, gripping the vial between two fingers as she does. When she comes away, she can feel the scorch of his skin yet. 

The cork pops easily from the top of the vial. Hawke has waited for Sabina to pull first. She drinks. The fluid is heavy against the inside of her throat. It tastes like dying and burnt sugar. All she can think about is how she wants it out, OUT. And her insides want out, OUT. Until she’s retching on the floor, the fluid thin, pale, not the Darkness of the others. As it comes up it floods her nostrils. Sabiana chokes, but on what exactly, she cannot discern. And then the realization comes. Herself, she is drowning in herself.

When she stops drowning, she starts screaming. Over her screams, the echos of Cullen’s, directed at Anders and Dagna. “What has gone wrong? Stop this!” he cries. But she knows, she knows intimately what is wrong. The Anchor.

With fluid still at her lips, her pain in her throat, she raises her left hand before her eyes. It is impossible to look for long. There is nothing left in her stomach to churn, but the hollow places within her wish to escape as well at the sight. The way the skin peels and burns, flesh coming away from bone. It creeps up her arm, splintering like deadwood. The pain rages, but she bites it back, refusing to yield. 

“ANDERS!” 

But he is already at her side, casting as quickly as he can. The pain dulls for a moment, then spikes erratically. Sabina bites her tongue until it bleeds, grabs her elbow, the rejection will be there soon.

“I cannot stop it,” Anders admits. Terror is in his voice too. “She’s rejecting the Anchor, I can’t.” He shakes his head. “Cullen.”

Because she cannot look at her arm, Sabina looks to Cullen instead, his eyes as wide as hers. Mouth open, he is unsure. But she knows. Really he does too. Only they do not wish to admit to it. Sabina grits her teeth.

“Cullen, cut it off.”

His nostrils flare, he is hesitating. But there is no time. She can feel it now approaching her joint. 

“NOW CULLEN!”

The room becomes very cold, the stone floor beneath her knees frosting over in a thin sheet of ice-lace, patterns pricking against her legs. There isn’t time to dwell on the oddity.

He is ready, it is clear enough in his light eyes. This is something they must do. He must look where she cannot. Holding out her arm, she balls the remains of her hand into a fist, holding it steady despite the pain. Her eyes close. She is afraid.

The slice is clean, clinical. Under different circumstances, she might joke about the importance of keeping his blade sharp, how fortunate. With the cut, the pain has shifted, not disappeared. But only now does Sabina realize her fist is not clenched. There is no fist to clench.

Warm healing magic drifts from Anders hands to her. To her--To her elbow. She cannot look. But the pain recedes. This is a wound Anders can tend, stutre closed, and mend. But no, no, she still cannot look.

But she sees it reflected in Cullen’s face, the way that the edges of his lips, his eyes, drop, his sword too. Her blood on the blade. It clatters against the floor. Even with the stain, it looks clean. The ice at her knees melts, making her knees wet. He topples beside her, the water soaking his trousers. Taking her face in her hands, he kisses at the corners of her eyes. She cried, she must have, the side of her face feels crusty now. Fuck.

Anders stops. Her arm feels light. She is dizzy but she wants to stand. 

“Cullen,” her voice breaks. “The ice?”

He looks over her shoulder. “Marian, but she’s fine now. She cast frost in her seizure.”

The question she needs answered she swallows down. The answer she already knows. But to say it would make it real.

“My dancing." As close as she may come. Keeping her voice low, she pleads with him. "I cannot stay here, please, I want to go back to our chambers."

He nods against her, helping her up by her right hand. The left shoulder moves, of course, but the lightness of it is terrifying. That there should be more there, more of her. Sabina does not look at the ground. There will be remnants there.

They must cross the hall. Cullen stands on her left, wrapping an arm around her waist and keeping the disfigurement hidden, the bloodstains as well. It cannot stay hidden forever, but right now, Sabina cannot cope with it.

It is not until the door closes behind them that she weeps, standing still, other than the heaving of her chest, in the center of their room. Cullen pulls the bloodied tunic from her shoulders, traces the lines of her tears, but does not say that everything will be alright, because they simply do not know. In that moment, she is not sure if she can love him more. Because his only words for her are of his devotion. Even now it remains.

\--

Sabina holds out her hands towards her son, waiting for his plump little body to step forward into her outstretched arms. He’s managed it before, a couple of times, willing himself into walking. It’s just a step or two before he falls down again. But he keeps picking himself up, the soft grass breaking his fall. His resilience is unwavering, like his gentle song.

She flexes her fingers, coaxing him forward, the metal knucklebones of her constructed arm producing a faint sound as they click together. Moving them again, she listens quite attentively, trying to work out how to avoid the noise on the next schematic. Perhaps to cushion the joints with lambskin between each knuckle? But that would wear away with repetitive use. A problem to be solved another time. Later, she’ll discuss possibilities with Dagna. Laboring over the workbench, she’ll devise something better, that moves even more naturally, better than natural. It’s a puzzle she wants to solve, the Artificer in her knows it’s within her ability. 

Rufus makes it, tumbles into her lap as she wraps her arms around him. Cullen finds them like that, their son resting against her chest, his tiny hand curled around one of her alloy fingers. 

“Here you are.” He settles in the grass beside her, not worrying about the state of his attire. She doesn’t either, the grass already stained the linen of her dress a vivid green. “I was wondering where you snuck off to.”

“I made time for this.”

Cullen’s fingers run against her spine, up and down, feeling out her vertebrae. 

More certainly than ever before, Sabina is a woman of her own making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along for this story.


End file.
